Cleaning up FCI's operations

Food distribution needs deeper reforms

The Food Corporation of India (FCI), the country’s apex food management agency, has seldom been known for its efficiency or corruption-free functioning. Yet, the unveiling by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of the presence of a well-oiled bribery syndicate in the FCI has come as a fresh eye-opener, underscoring the exigency for structural and operational reforms in this behemoth public-sector body. This unholy nexus, involving FCI officials, private grain traders, rice millers, and various others, has been unearthed through raids and searches conducted by the investigating body at nearly 100 places across the country under a massive drive named “Operation Kanak”. The FIR filed by the CBI reveals that FCI officials charged between Rs 1,000 and Rs 4,000 per truckload from rice millers for accepting substandard grains and extending other favours to them. The booty allegedly got channelised right up to the corporation’s headquarters through a well-defined percentage of cuts at each level.

Thankfully, the government has not made any attempt to gloss over the issue and has rather been quick to make the right kind of anti-corruption noises. Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal dubbed it a “wake-up call”, choosing, notably, an appropriate occasion — the 59th Foundation Day of the FCI — to do so. He also vowed to follow the “zero tolerance policy for corruption” in the FCI. Analysts, however, are of the view that what the CBI has unearthed might only be the tip of the iceberg. The real scam could be much bigger, given the massive scale of the FCI’s operations involving procurement, storage, and distribution of 130 million tonnes of grains annually. The need, therefore, is not just to rein in all-pervasive malpractices in FCI operations through strict vigilance and use of technology but also to make its functioning fully transparent.

Some measures needed for this purpose have found place in the five-point agenda mooted by the food minister to improve the image of the FCI. His suggestion for the use of transparency-oriented technology, including CCTV, in the entire chain of operations, from procurement to delivery, can be one such case in point. It can help plug the leakages and improve functional efficiency to a considerable extent. So is the proposal to set up a grievance redress mechanism for the benefit of those who have to interact directly with FCI functionaries.

However, the most urgent need is to carry forward the process of structural and functional reforms initiated way back in 2015 by appointing a high-level committee headed by former Union minister Shanta Kumar, but they were left halfway. Some of the recommendations of this panel were hard to implement — such as amending the National Food Security Act — but many other suggestions deserved attention. Decentralisation of the food management system by passing on greater responsibilities to state governments was one among them. Most states now produce enough cereals to meet their requirements. So, they can safely be asked to procure, store, and distribute these grains on their own with the Centre’s (read FCI’s) role being confined only to gap-filling. Such a move would hugely slash the workload of the FCI, thereby reducing the scope for corruption.