Central govt directs FCI to provide food grains to NGOs helping poor amid lockdown

Amid the nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus crisis, the Central government on Wednesday, April 8, has directed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to provide food grains to NGOs and charitable organisations. According to reports, the FCI will provide wheat and rice at the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) rates without going through the e-auction process to help NGOs provide cooked food to poor people. 

As per an official release from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, the organisations can purchase from one to 10 metric tonnes at a time from FCI at the predetermined reserve prices.

The release stated, "FCI has a network of more than 2000 godowns in the country and such a large network of godowns will ensure smooth supply of food grains to these organisations in this hour of crisis. It will help relief camps in their philanthropic work of feeding poor and migrant workers in the country. The details of the lifting of foodgrain by such institutions would be intimated to the concerned DMs to ensure that the foodgrains are utilized for the intended purpose." 

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FCI moved 2.2 million tonnes of foodgrains

According to the ministry, the FCI has moved 2.2 Million tonnes from the surplus states since the beginning of lockdown and has handed over about 1 million tonnes of food grains to the state governments under the PMGKAY scheme.

Further, the corporation has also delivered about 3.2 million tonnes of food grains to state governments to meet the requirements under regular NFSA allocation. 

The release further read, "FCI is regularly providing rice under OMSS directly to state governments and wheat to flour Mills based on the recommendations of respective DM/DC to stabilize supply and prices. So far 1.45 LMT Wheat and 1.33 LMT rice has been allotted." 

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India under lockdown

In a bid to tackle the growing crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 had announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus, stating that "social distancing" is the only way to contain the disease which is spreading rapidly across the world. 

According to the latest update of the Health Ministry, about 5,274 cases of COVID-19 infection have been reported in the country including 4,714 active cases. While 149 deaths have been reported overall, around 411 people have been cured. Currently, the highest number of cases have been reported from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

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(With ANI Inputs)