the Food Corporation of India, FCI, has taken all possible steps to make available godowns with a storage capacity of 153 million tonnes as against the existing 60 million tonnes.
Prof. Thomas said, FCI required over 85 thousand crore rupees for payments towards procurement of food grains. He said, his Ministry is paying 63 thousand crore rupees towards subsidy, which is likely to touch one lakh crore rupees soon. Prof. Thomas said, his Ministry has requested the Finance Ministry to allocate more funds in the budget. To a specific question, the Minister said, the government is gearing up to meet the requirements under the proposed Food Security Bill.