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Food Corporation Of India
Food Corporation of India (FCI) is a government owned corporation which was instituted under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, on 14 January 1965 under the Food Corporations Act 1964; starting with its very first District Office in the rice capital of the state of Tamil Nadu at Thanjavur and the headquarters at Chennai. It is one of the largest corporations in India and probably the largest supply chain management in Asia.
Organization
Food Corporation of India operates through five zones and a total of twenty-six regional offices with their headquarters situated in the capital of India, New Delhi. The Institute of Food Security also comes under FCI’s jurisdiction.
The five zones are:
- North Zone
- West Zone
- South Zone
- East Zone
- North-East Zone
FCI is governed by a Board of Directors, headed by a Chairman or the Managing Director, which is augmented by a senior management staff. Their duties and responsibilities are outlined in the ‘Code of Conduct and Ethics’.
Operation
- Procurement: FCI purchases around 15% each of India's wheat and rice production, annually. The procurement is made from the farmers at the prices fixed by the government. No upper limit is determined for procurement; any amount can be bought by FCI as long as the produce conforms to the Fair Average Quality specifications with respect to FCI regulations.
- Storage and Contracting: Prescribed quantities of grains are stocked and recorded in FCI warehouses all over the country and are managed by the respective regional managers. Private warehousing contracts are also issued for temporary storage facilities.
- Transportation: The grains are transported from the surplus States to the deficit States. FCI moves about 25 Million tons of grains across an average distance of 1500 kilometers via road and rail.
- Finance: The losses incurred by the FCI between the purchase and sales, are reimbursed by the Central Government as a ‘Food Subsidy’. The current annual subsidy amounts to almost $10 billion. Annual reports on sources, loans and the economic impact are produced by the FCI.
- Sales: The stocks are moved out of storage and sold to the State Government at subsidized rates for distribution under the Public Distribution System (PDS) or the Rationing System for the consumption of the ration card holding citizens.
- Stocks: The Food policy determines the minimum and maximum amounts of stock required in each of the five zones and monitors the status of the buffer stocks
- Quality Control: Establishing, maintaining and improving ISO 9001:2000 based Quality Management Systems covering all areas of activity.
- Import and Export: Executes the import or export orders from the Ministry of Food and Ministry of Agriculture, as a government corporation
- Industrial Relation-Labor: Regulates the industrial labor compensations and issues in its jurisdiction by implementing the government’s Labor policies in the Food industry.
Objectives
FCI was formed to apply and execute the goals of the long term National Food Policy which are as under
- Welfare of the farmer communities by providing reliable and profitable prices to their produce
- Efficient food delivery system to be used in combination with the Rationing System
- Ensuring National Food Security by storing emergency and buffer stocks of food grain.
As Government Directives FCI has the Following Functions
- Providing farmers with proper compensations
- Ensuring that the staple diet of the population of India is available and affordable, especially the those near the poverty line
- Stocking food grains in case of a deficit
- Indirectly regulate the market prices of food grains.