India is not only self-sufficient in food-grain production (300 million tons in 2019-20) but is also a net food exporter (9th largest exporter of agriproducts). Despite this, nearly 16% of the population is undernourished, 35.5% of children are facing chronic hunger i.e., stunting and 19.3% are facing acute hunger i.e., wasting (NFHS-5 reports). It appears that the greater challenge to food security in India is not the actual shortage of food grain, but its poor management, because:

• Post-harvest losses: As per the Indian Grain Management and Research Institute, post-harvest losses in India due to unscientific storage, and infestation by insects, rodents, micro-organisms, etc. account for about 10% of total food grains. This amount could have fed one-third of India’s poor (World Bank).
• Lack of adequate storage Infrastructure with FCI and Warehousing corporations:
  • Due to the lack of covered godowns and silos, most of the procured foodgrains are kept under Cover and Plinth (CAP) storage, which does not fulfill the temperature and moisture requirements for longer shelf life.
  • During bumper harvest, many times the produced grains are kept in the open, this leads to damage and destruction due to seeping water and excessive exposure, spoiling the crops.
  • There are delays in disposing of the rotting grains, which leads to further contamination and loss.
• Procurement above buffer stock norms: It has been observed that the amount of foodgrain procured is much higher than the required buffer norms. For instance, at present, India has 227 lakh tons of wheat in government godowns against the required buffer norm of 205 lakh tons. It poses multiple issues, such as:
  • It reduces the budget for creating infrastructure.
  • In the absence of adequate storage facilities, the extra food grain is left to rot.
  • Such procurements distort the market price of food grains, creating accessibility issues for those poor who are not covered under PDS. Currently, only 67% of the country’s population is covered under NFSA.
• Issues in the distribution of food grains: Though the procurement of food grains is open-ended, its distribution is limited through PDS only, which puts the burden of infrastructure creation completely on the government. The private sector participation has been very limited in this regard.

To resolve the issue of food grain storage, the Indian government has come up with the Private Entrepreneurship Guarantee Scheme (2008) and an action plan for the construction of steel silos (2017-22) in PPP mode. It is expected that it will substantially reduce the unscientific storage of food grains from 2022, as adequate storage has been created. To further resolve the food security crisis the government must work on the recommendation of the Shanta Kumar Committee (2015).