Govt to invest ₹1,280 cr to upgrade FCI, CWC godowns, says Food Minister Joshi

Union Food Minister Pralhad Joshi 
| Photo Credit:
PTI

Union Food Minister Pralhad Joshi on Tuesday launched three initiatives —Depot Darpan portal, and Anna Mitra and Anna Sahayata mobile Apps —to digitalise the operations of warehouses used for grain storage by Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Central Warehousing Corporations. The move is aimed at improving the efficiencies in the Public Distribution System (PDS).

Addressing a gathering of officials of FCI and CWC in New Delhi, Joshi said there will be an investment of ₹1,000 crore to upgrade infrastructure of existing godowns of FCI and ₹280 crore on warehouses owned by CWC.

The minister said t the Centre is making use of latest technologies to bring transparency, improve efficiencies and curb leakages in PDS. The overall objective is to supply quality foodgrains to over 80 crore people through the ration shops under the National Food Security Act, he added.

Currently, there are 2,278 godowns, both owned and hired by FCI and CWC. The investment will help in huge saving for both FCI and CWC by reducing losses at various levels, Joshi stressed.

Capacity additions

Asserting that the government is fully prepared for storage and distribution of foodgrains during any exigencies and it has been demonstrated during Covid pandemic, he said due to ample stock of rice and wheat in government godowns food inflation is also under control.

Highlighting that the government is increasing the storage capacities across the country, he said the Cooperation Ministry is creating 700 lakh tonnes (lt) of storage capacities with an investment of over Rs 1 lakh crore. He said such a step will help achieve 100 per cent storage requirement of agriculture crops produced in the country as in many developed countries. Currently, it is about 47 per cent in India, he added.

Observing that there will always be a few “black sheep” and “greedy people” in the system, Joshi said these three Apps would help in curbing the leakages and also reduce wastage while noting that FCI has reduced food wastages considerably in last few years.

Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the initiative reflects the vision of a Viksit Bharat and will bring about measurable improvements in depot infrastructure and operational efficiency. A grading framework has been introduced that assesses depots on a 60:40 ratio of operational performance and infrastructure standards he said adding metrics include storage and transit loss, space utilization, manpower efficiency, and profitability.

Real-time monitoring

Depot Darpan is a digital self-assessment and monitoring portal aimed at empowering depot officials to systematically evaluate and enhance their operations, the Food Ministry said in a statement. Designed to help foodgrain depots achieve the highest standards of warehousing excellence, the platform assigns a Composite Rating based on both infrastructural parameters, such as safety standards, environmental sustainability, and statutory compliance and operational parameters like occupancy levels, profitability, and storage efficiency.

Depot Darpan integrates IoT sensors for real-time monitoring of environmental and inventory conditions, CCTV surveillance for improved security, and live video feeds with analytics to support informed, data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.

On the other hand, Anna Mitra is designed to meet the specific operational needs of key stakeholders in the PDS. Anna Sahayata is a citizen-first grievance redressal platform designed on the pillars of accessibility, accountability, and efficiency which leverages modern tools like WhatsApp, IVRS, and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) to make grievance lodging as easy as sending a message or making a call.

In its current rollout both the Apps are also available in regional languages, Anna Mitra covers four states — Assam, Uttarakhand, Tripura, and Punjab whereas Anna Sahayata covers five states —Gujarat, Jharkhand, Telangana, Tripura, and Uttar Pradesh. Eventually both the systems will be deployed pan India across all States, the ministry said.

Published on May 20, 2025