Bengal Govt to construct warehouses totalling 5 lakh tonnes capacity for foodgrains
The Bengal Government has decided to construct large warehouses, totaling a capacity of 5 lakh metric tonnes, for storing foodgrains, at a cost of Rs 800 crore. Each warehouse will have a capacity to store 50,000 metric tonnes, according to the Food and Supplies Minister.
This would enable the government to buy more foodgrains from the state’s farmers.
The situation with respect to storing of foodgrains has improved vastly from the times of the Left Front Government. From the ability to store 60,000 metric tonnes annually, the capacity has increased by 10 times, to nearly 6 lakh metric tonnes.
Work is going on to increase the warehouse capacity by 3 lakh metric tonnes; and after the full implementation of the current project to add 5 lakh metric tonnes, the total capacity would become 14 lakh metric tonnes.
The warehouses constructed earlier were of smaller capacities, being able to store 5 to 10 lakh metric tonnes each. The ones in the current project will be high-capacity ones, of 50,000 metric tonnes each.
In the current kharif crop season, the State Government has set a target of buying 52 lakh metric tonnes from farmers. This capacity would gradually go up with the construction of more and more warehouses. This ability would also give the government the ability to sell more foodgrains to other states, from some of which there is a lot interest in buying from Bengal.
