Movement Planning in Food Corporation of India

Group V

Objective
The Food Corporation of India was setup under the Food Corporation Act 1964, in order to fulfil following objectives of the Food Policy:

1. 2. 3.

Effective price support operations for safeguarding the interests of the farmers. Distribution of food grains throughout the country for public distribution system Maintaining satisfactory level of operational and buffer stocks of food grains to ensure National Food Security 4. In its 45 years of service to the nation, FCI has played a significant role in India's success in transforming the crisis management oriented food security into a stable security system. FCI's Objectives are: 1. To provide farmers remunerative prices 2. To make food grains available at reasonable prices, particularly to vulnerable section of the society 3. To maintain buffer stocks as measure of Food Security 4. To intervene in market for price stabilization 5. FCI has five zones and 24 Regional offices and 169 district offices with more than 1000 depots

Operations of FCI
Procurement Movement Sales Storage Quality Control Import Planning is essential for each these operations.

Movement Planning of food grains

1. In FCI Zonal office (South) at Chennai we met the Shri Thiyam Gambir Singh, Sr. Manager (Movt) regarding the movement planning of food grains. 2. He enlightened us on the movement planning, which enables the distribution of food grains throughout the length and breadth of the country. 3. The food grain surplus is mainly confined to the Northern States; transportation involves long distance throughout the country. Stocks procured in the markets and purchase centres is first collected in the nearest depot and from there dispatched to the recipient States within a limited time. 4. FCI moves about 250 Lakhs tonnes of food grains over an average distance of 1500 Kms.

 Regularly rice and wheat procured in the Northern States is moved to far flung corners Imphal, Manipur or Kanyakumari in Tamilnadu and to the higher reaches of the Himalayas in the North. An average of 20, 00,000 bags (50 Kg) of food grains are transported every day from the producing States to the consuming areas, by rail, road, inland waterways etc. Thus by effective planning and Management of the transport System FCI regularly moves food grains and sugar from the procuring Region to the concerning Region.

Modes of Transportation

Movement planning process:

The capacity of the depots and its utilisation are monitored daily and entered into the specific MIS software called IRRS. The software gives the entire details of capacity of the depots, utilisation percentage, vacancy etc. The details are entered at the depot level. The Area Managers who are in-charge of the districts also monitor the same.

The requirement is calculated based on the following

Procurement by FCI Present storage levels Food grains which are being received/unloaded Rakes in transit Off take by the State governments based on the past three months off take trend Open market sales of food grains

 During the Area Managers meeting conducted every month at the Regional office, the required food grains are finalised. Thereafter, the consolidated requirement for all FCI districts is prepared by the respective Regional office. This statement of requirement for food grains is sent to the Zonal office. It is also deliberated during the Zonal performance review meeting. Zonal office consolidates all such statements from the Regions under its control and sends the same to FCI Hqrs in the form of despatch instructions. (DI) Now FCI Hqrs has all such details from the 5 zones.

 Based on the despatch instructions received from the zones/regions and the availability/procurement of food grains, FCI Hqrs plans the movement operations for each month. Before embarking on movement planning, FCI Hqrs has to take into account the procurement in the major procuring states such as Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Movement of food grains over long distance is mostly by rail. For this it has also to take into account the availability of rakes with the railways for rail movement. At FCI Hqrs there is a separate Movement division headed by Executive Director (Traffic) mostly manned by IAS officer under whom there is General Manager assisted by Dy Genl Manager, Asst General Managers, Managers and Assistants. Under the newly introduced MIS, FCI Hqrs fixes movement targets and Key Performance Indicators for each year for movement of food grains. A separate movement planning meeting is held at FCI Hqrs every month to finalise the monthly movement plan.

To sum up, FCI Hqrs finalises the monthly movement plans based on the following factors Procurement by FCI in the procuring states Present storage levels in the various zones/regions Availability of rakes Off take by the various State governments Open market sales of food grains