NFSA - Budgetary Implications for Adequate Provisioning of 'Storage Capacity'
The National Food Security Act has clearly mentioned that additional costs have to be borne by the State governments to create additional storage capacities. However, given the financial constraints that many of the State Governments are facing today, particularly the poorer States would find it very difficult to afford for such a provisioning. Given the buffer stock policy of the country, certain minimum stocks of food grains need to be maintained by the FCI. However, it has been found that the stock of food grains with FCI and other such agencies are well above the norms set for it, which requires urgent attention of the policy makers to ease supply constraint. The present article tries to elaborate the situation of food grain stocks vis-a-vis the buffer norm and the costs that has to be provisioned by the State governments to create additional storage capacities. It argues that there is a need for rationalizing the buffer stock norms as well as support from the Union Government to the State governments to create additional storages.
