NEW DELHI, July 11: Due to a slew of initiatives undertaken by the government, the damages and losses of foodgrains in India have come down significantly during the course of past five years and now account for less than even one lakh tonnes of the total foodgrain production, Union Minister of State for Food K V Thomas said here today.
“About five years back our damages and losses of foodgrains were to the tune of 2.5 per cent and now when we are managing about 82 million tonnes of foodgrains, our losses and damages have come down to the level of 0.006 per cent which is less than even one lakh tonnes,” said Prof Thomas.
The Minister was speaking while inaugurating the “4th Global Summit on 2nd Green Revolution” organised by industry body Assocham.
“This is one of the major achievements of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) which looks after one of the major areas of food storage and is one of the largest storing agency in the country,” said the Minister.
While advocating the grave need for minimising the wastage at all stages of food processing chain, Prof Thomas said, “Development of a strong and vibrant food processing industry together with infrastructure for storage, transportation and processing of agro-produce is essential to minimise the wastages.”
Talking about the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Food Processing to promote the industry through developmental and policy measures the minister said that the government is providing assistance to food processing industries under its various schemes, supporting various R&D activities and working towards human resource development to meet the growing demand for skilled manpower and promoting entrepreneurship.
(UNI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel