Why in news? The Union Cabinet approved forming and empowering an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) to create the “world’s largest grain storage plan in the cooperative sector” by converging eight ongoing schemes of three ministries.

Highlights:

• The Ministries of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Food Processing Industries are involved in the committee.
• To ensure timely and uniform implementation of the plan in a professional manner, the Ministry of Cooperation would implement a pilot project in at least 10 selected districts of different States.
• The plan would be implemented by utilising the available outlays provided under the identified schemes of the respective Ministries.
• It aims to address not just shortage of agricultural storage infrastructure in the country by facilitating establishment of godown at the level of primary agricultural credit societies
• By providing various options to farmers, it would prevent distress sale of crops, thus enabling farmers to realise better prices for their produce.
• It would hugely reduce the cost incurred in transportation of food grains to procurement centres and again transporting the stocks back from warehouses to FPS (fair price shops)