Food Corporation of India
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Government-owned corporation | |
Industry | PSU |
Founded | 1964 |
Founder | Govt of India |
Headquarters | New Delhi, India |
Area served | All India |
Key people | Shri Yogendra Tripathi (wef 30/7/2015 F/N) (I.A.S), Chairman & MD |
Products | Mainly Wheat & Rice |
Services | Govt Policy Execution |
Number of employees | Sanctioned:- 36515 In position:- 26716 (as on 31/3/2013) |
Website | http://www.fci.gov.in/ |
Footnotes / references It pay through IDA pattren not in CDA |
Food Corporation of India (Hindi: भारतीय खाद्य निगम) was set up on 14 January 1965 having its first District Office at Thanjavur - rice bowl of Tamil Nadu - and headquarters at Delhi under the Food Corporations Act 1964 to implement the following objectives of the National Food Policy :
- Effective price support operations for safeguarding the interests of the farmers
- Distribution of foodgrains throughout the country for Public Distribution System
- Maintaining satisfactory level of operational and buffer stocks of foodgrains to ensure National Food Security
- Regulate market price to provide foodgrains to consumers at a reliable price
Statistics
It is one of the largest corporations in India and probably the largest supply chain management in Asia (Second in world ) . It operates through 5 Zonal offices and 24 Regional offices. Each year, the Food Corporation of India purchases roughly 15 to 20 per cent of India's wheat output and 12 to 15 per cent of its rice output. The purchases are made from the farmers at the rates declared by the Govt. of India. This rate is called as MSP (Minimum Support Price). There is no limit for procurement in terms of volume, any quantity can be procured by FCI(Food Corporation of India) provided the stock satisfies FAQ (Fair Average Quality) specifications with respect to FCI.
Organizational structure
Food Corporation of India operates through it Field Offices/District Offices which are headed by an Assistant General Manager, designated as Area Manager. Assistant General Manager (QC) is also posted who is looking after the QC work. Under Area Manager control there are Managers to deal with each and every section viz., sales, contracts,sl-tl, movement, establishment, quality control, operational accounts etc., who consolidate the field level operations and through the area managers' authorization, they transmit the necessary information and periodical statements to regional offices of their respective regions. Regional offices are headed by a General Manager, who is in most of the cases from Indian Revenue Service, Indian Administrative Service /All India Services under deputation. Under his control Deputy General Managers who are FCI's officers coordinate with daily operations through the Assistant General Managers who were posted in various sections to oversee the functions of district offices units of their particular section. All these officers appraise the general manager periodically on various issues pertaining to district offices of that particular region. FCI had 5 zones i.e. North, South, East, West & North-East. All the regional offices are under the control of zonal offices which are headed by an executive director, who is in most of the cases from Indian Administrative Service and Indian Revenue Service under deputation. Under his control three or more than three general managers coordinate with all regional Offices of their particular zone through subordinate officers like deputy general managers and assistant general managers dealing with their allotted operational sections in their zone. All the zonal offices are under the control of Headquarters, New Delhi, which is headed by chairman and managing director, who is an Indian Administrative Officer of secretary rank on Central Deputation. Headquarters instruct, communicate, consolidate and refine the voluminous information required for the streamlined execution of day-to-day operations and coordinates with Ministry of Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution and Food Secretary and various sister corporations like Central Warehousing Corporation, Indian Railways in formulating food policy or amending the existing policy to suit the emerging challenges in managing Food Security scenario of the nation.
Human resources
Food Corporation of India has the following categories of employees:
- Category-I -Designation - Assistant General Manager, Deputy General Manager, General Manager, Executive Director
- Category-II -Designation - Manager
- Category-III - Assistant Grade-I, Assistant Grade-II, Assistant Grade-III
- Category-IV - Dusting operator,Watch man and Picker etc.
All the category-I and Category-II are recruited through a competitive exam and recruits will be trained at Institute of Food Security, Gurgaon for a period of 6 months during which trainees will be exposed to various operations at field offices and depots and will be finally inducted as Managers/Assistant General Managers and attached to one of the field offices or a section in Zonal or Regional Offices. All the Category-III officials are recruited either through Staff Selection Commission or through FCI's own competitive exam. Category-III officials are trained at Zonal Training Institutes and Regional In service training sessions and one week at field offices after their recruitment.
Operations
The Food Corporation of India procures Rice and Wheat from farmers through many routes like Paddy purchase centers/Mill Levy/Custom Milling and stores them in depots.FCI maintains many types of depots like Food Storage Depots and Buffer Storage Complexes and Private Equity Godowns and also implemented latest storage methods of silo storage facilities which are located at hapur in UttarPradesh and Elavur in Tamilnadu.The stocks are transported throughout India and issued to the State Government nominees at the rates declared by the Government of India for further distribution under the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the consumption of the ration card holders. (FCI itself does not directly distribute any stock under PDS, and its operations end at the exit of the stock from its depots). The difference between the purchase price and sale price, along with internal costs, are reimbursed by the Union Government in the form of food subsidy. At present the annual subsidy is around $10 billion. FCI by itself is not a decision-making authority; it does not decide anything about the MSP, imports or exports. It just implements the decisions made by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Ministry of Agriculture.
Food Corporation of India recently ventured into procurement of pulses in various regions from the crop year 2015-16 and pulses are procured at market rate which is a sharp deviation from its traditional Minimum Support Price based procurement system.
In the year 2014, Government of India setup a High Level Committee under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble Member of Parliament and former Minister of Food and Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Shri Shanthakumar to recommend viable solutions regarding restructuring and reorienting the role of Food Corporation of India and the committee submitted its report to the government and many of the committee recommendations are under various stages of implementation.
References
Leading food retail company in india
External links
- Official Website of FCI
- Ministry of Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution
- Annual Reports 2003-04 to 2007-08