The Punjab State Grains Procurement Corporation (Pungrain), a subsidiary of the state’s food and civil supplies department, has asked godown owners, who previously leased their facilities for storing foodgrains under the Private Entrepreneurs Godown (PEG) scheme, to rework their financial terms.
A senior official in the food and civil supplies department said the issue is being handled carefully to satisfy PEG owners while ensuring no storage space is lost.
“We are also willing to shift to the FCI as they offer a higher rent price of ₹ 7.40 per quintal per month, which also include preservation charges,” said Brar, adding that even if the additional responsibility of preservation is entrusted on them by the FCI, they were willing to take the offer.
The state’s entire warehouse capacity of 180 lakh tonnes is currently full. The government godowns are already storing 155 lakh tonnes of rice accumulated over the past three seasons. An additional 10 lakh tonnes of paddy from the last season are still waiting to be milled, which is expected to add another 6 lakh tonnes of rice to the existing stockpile.
Because the state government has failed to give the godown owners an increase in the storage charges, pungrain has already lost 10 lakh tonnes of foodgrain storage space to the Centre’s Food Corporation of India (FCI).
