CHANDIGARH, DECEMBER 10: The Punjab State has been permitted to construct state-of-the-art warehousing facility to store 42 lakh tonnes of grains, the largest ever storage capacity being created by any state in a single fiscal year.
Speaking to media persons, after laying the foundation stone of Rs 23 crore ‘Anaaj Bhawan’, a composite office building of all wings of the food and civil supplies department, Mr. Adaish Pratap Singh Kairon, Food and Civil Supplies and Information Technology Minister, said that Punjab, the granary of the country purchases 24 million tonnes of grain annually that is even higher than the largest global export countries of Canada and Russia that export 21 million tonnes and 20 million tonnes respectively per year. He said that being a largest producer of grain of the world puts an onus of responsibility of scientific storage and transportation of the grains to the end user in the larger interest of the country. He said that union government has permitted us to go for scientific storage of wheat and Punjab has already initiated construction of warehousing facility for 42 lakh tonnes. It would be the largest ever storage capacity being created by any state in the country.
Mr. Kairon said that food and civil supplies department’s offices were scattered all over Chandigarh and Mohali and this new Anaaj Bhawan would provide a composite offices for all wings of department. He said that since this department has a direct interaction with farmers, traders and government authorities and its employees all over the state cannot enjoy weekly offs or holidays five months a year during procurement season, this state-of-the-art office would improve their efficiency. He said that this department makes annual payment of Rs 35,000 crore to the farmers, having a distinction of highest Rupee trader of the country.
Speaking about the plans to bring transparency in the working of the department, Mr. Kairon said that after kerosene now any citizen of the country would be able to track the movement of vehicles carrying PDS and other grains right from store to the PDS outlets. He said that the transparency brought in kerosene distribution had a salutary effect. He informed that on the suggestion of all oil companies, the tankers carrying kerosene have been given a distinct blue reflective colour so that any attempt of pilferage by them could be detected by general public. He said that each kerosene truck has been put on GPS enabled devices that can track the movement of truck right from storage facility to the dealer. He said that any deviation from sanctioned route could be tracked on GPS inviting punishment for the transport company. He said anybody can access the website www.trackmaster.in and feed the user name ‘Kerosene’ and password ‘transparency’ to track the movement of vehicle. For Atta Dal vehicles the user name would be ‘attadal’ and password would be ‘transparency’.
Mr. Kairon said that department has been providing atta dal to the 16 lakh beneficiaries throughout the state, who were getting 35kg grain and 4kg protein rich dal by 7th of every month and every stockist was getting the stock by 2nd of every month. He said that it was the largest ever distribution network of PDS that was working successfully since last five years.
Prominent amongst those present on the occasion included Mr. S.P. Singh, Chairman Pungrain and Mr. D.S. Grewal, Secretary, Food and Supplies.
