New Delhi, August 23
India, with the largest number of hungry persons in the world, wastes fruits, grains and vegetables worth Rs 44,000 crore every year due to lack of adequate storage infrastructure.

Agriculture and Food Processing Industries Minister Sharad Pawar told the Rajya Sabha today that the value of annual wastage of fruits and vegetables was estimated at Rs 13,309 crore. However, if the wastage value of rice, wheat, cereals and others is taken into account, it would go up to Rs 44,000 crore a year.

He said the Saumitra Chaudhuri Committee, constituted by the Planning Commission in 2012, has indicated 61.3 million tonnes of cold storage requirement in the country against the present capacity of around 29 million tonnes. “The present gap is around 32 million tonnes,” Pawar said.

The government has already initiated various steps to encourage creation of additional storage capacity, the minister said, adding that investment of FDI in retail was expected to help develop back-end cold storage infrastructure.

The government provides financial assistance in the form of grant-in-aid at the rate of 50 per cent of the total cost of plant and machinery and technical civil works in general areas and at the rate of 75 per cent in difficult areas, including North-eastern states, for creation of cold chain infrastructure. The ceiling is, however, Rs 10 crore.

Responding to another query, Food Minister KV Thomas said the government had formulated a scheme ‘Private Entrepreneurs Guarantee (PEG)’ for creation of additional storage capacity for guaranteed hiring by the Food Corporation of India. “In 2013-14, against a target of 60 lakh tonne capacity creation under the PEG scheme, 3.36 lakh tonne has been completed up to July,” he said.

Meanwhile, wheat procurement by government agencies this year will fall to about 25 million tonne from 38 million tonne last year due to aggressive buying by private traders, Thomas said, replying to supplementaries. The Food Minister said wheat procurement in the year beginning April 2013 will be 33 per cent lower than last year.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of foodgrains, and state agencies had procured 37.35 million tonne wheat last year.

“This season production has been good, but procurement will come down from 38 million tonne (last year) to 25 million tonne as private players are aggressively buying foodgrain,” he said. Private traders are buying wheat at a rate higher than the government’s MSP.