Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs
15- FOOD, CIVIL SUPPLIES AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS |
- The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution is a ministry with two departments - the Department of Food and Public Distribution and the Department of Consumer Affairs.
- Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) one of the two departments under the Ministry was constituted as a separate Department in June 1997 as it was considered necessary to have a separate department to give a fillip to the nascent consumer movement in the country.
- The Department has been entrusted with the following work:
- Internal trade
- The Essential Commodities Act, 1955
- Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supply of Essential Commodities Act, 1980
- Regulation of packaged commodities
- Training in legal metrology
- Consumer cooperatives
- The Department of Food and Public Distribution, in the Ministry, is responsible for the management of the food economy of the nation.
- It undertakes various activities, such as procurement of food items, their storage, movement and delivery to the distributing agencies.
- The primary policy objective of the Department is to ensure food security for the country through timely and efficient procurement and distribution of foodgrains.
- The focus is on incentivizing farmers through the fair value of their produce by way of Minimum Support Price mechanism, distribution of Foodgrains to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families and covering poor households at the risk of hunger under Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), establishing grain banks in food
- scarce areas and involvement of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) in the Public Distribution System (PDS).
Consumer Affairs:
- India was a pioneer in consumer advocacy with the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), path-breaking legislation at the time, enacted in 1986, and the establishment of a separate government department dedicated to consumer affairs as early as in 1997.
- Translating this mandate into action entails:
- Enabling consumers to make informed choices
- Ensuring fair, equitable and consistent outcomes for consumers
- Facilitating timely and effective consumer grievance redress
Consumer Affairs |
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Consumer Awareness |
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Consumer Welfare Fund |
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Commitment to Consumers |
The DCA seeks to empower consumers through:
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Consumer Protection Act:
- A key milestone in consumer advocacy in the country was the enactment of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
- This progressive legislation established the three tier quasi-judicial consumer dispute redress machinery at the national, state, and district levels aimed at providing simple, speedy and affordable redress to consumers.
Consumer Protection Act |
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Bureau of Indian Standards |
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National Consumer Helpline |
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Consumer Grievance Redress |
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National Test House |
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Price Monitoring |
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Food and Public Distribution:
The primary objective of the Department of Food & Public Distribution is to ensure food security for the country through:
- Efficient procurement at Minimum Support Price (MSP), storage and distribution of food grains
- Ensuring availability of foodgrains sugar and edible oils through appropriate policy instruments
- Making foodgrains accessible at reasonable prices, especially to the weaker and vulnerable sections of society under a Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
Procurement of Foodgrains:
- Food Corporation of India (FCI), with the help of state government agencies, procures wheat, paddy and coarse grains in various states in order to provide price support to the farmers.
- Before each Rabi/Kharif crop season, central government announces the Minimum Support Prices (MSP), based on the recommendations of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which takes into consideration the cost of various agricultural inputs and the reasonable margin for the farmers for their produce.
- State governments are encouraged to adopt decentralized procurement (DCP) system of procurement so as to maximise procurement, reduce transportation and increase the reach of MSP operations.
- Under this system, state governments undertake procurement and distribution of foodgrains by themselves.
- With the substantial increase in production of foodgrains in recent years and with an emphasis on bringing Green Revolution in Eastern-India, the procurement operations have expanded to many states due to which accumulated Central Pool Stock of foodgrains had reached to a record level of 805.16 lakh tonnes in 2012 against the buffer norm of 319 lakh tonnes.
Stock in Central Pool:
- Foodgrain Stocking Norms (Buffer Norms) were laid down:
- To meet the prescribed minimum stocking norms for food security
- To ensure monthly releases of foodgrains for the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), Other Welfare Schemes (OWS)
- To meet emergency situations arising out of unexpected crop failure, natural disasters, festivals, etc.
National Food Security:
- In order to further strengthen the commitment to the food security of the people, the Government of India enacted the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), which came into force from 2013.
- The Act aims to provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live with dignity.
- The Act provides for coverage of up to 75 percent of the rural population and up to 50 percent of the urban population for receiving subsidized foodgrains under Targeted Public Distribution System, thus covering about two-thirds of the population.
- This coverage for receiving highly subsidized foodgrains is under two categories—households covered under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and the remaining households as priority households.
- AAY was launched in 2000 to provide focus on food security to the poorest of the poor, and covers 2.5 crore households.
- Such households are entitled under the Act to receive 35 kg. of foodgrains per households per month, at ? 1/2/3 per kg. for coarse grains/wheat/rice.
- Priority households are entitled to receive 5 kg. of foodgrains per person per month at the above mentioned highly subsidized prices.
- NFSA is now being implemented in all the states/UTs covering about 80.55 crore beneficiaries, against intended coverage of 81.34 crore people.
- In Chandigarh, Puducherry and urban areas of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the Act is being implemented in the cash transfer mode under which food subsidy is being transferred into the bank accounts of beneficiaries who then have a choice to buy foodgrains from open market.
End-to-End Computerisation:
- Department of Food and Public Distribution is implementing a Plan Scheme on ‘End-to-End Computerisation’ of TPDS(Targeted Public Distribution System) Operations on cost sharing basis with states/UTs with funding requirement of Rs 884.07 crore, out of which Government of India’s share is Rs 489.37 crore and that of states/UTs is Rs 394.70 crore.
Integrated Management of PDS (IM-PDS):
- A new central sector scheme– ‘Integrated Management of PDS’ (IM- PDS) is to be implemented during FY 2018-19 and 2019-20 for establishing Public Distribution System Network (PDSN) to inter alia implement national level deduplication of beneficiaries and portability.
- The Scheme will strengthen better targeting of food subsidy and help the beneficiaries to lift foodgrains from the FPSs of their choice.
- According to a notification issued in 2017 (as amended from time to time) under Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 the individual beneficiaries having ration cards under NFSA need to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication to receive subsidies.
Other Welfare Schemes |
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Mid-Day Meal Scheme |
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Wheat Based Nutrition Programme |
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Scheme for Adolescent Girls |
SABLA scheme:
Aims:
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Supply of Foodgrains to Welfare Institutions |
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Supply of Foodgrains for SC/ST/OBC Hostels |
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Annapurna Scheme |
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Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic) |
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Storage of Foodgrains |
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Capacity of FCI and State Agencies |
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Augmentation of Storage Capacity |
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Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority:
- For the growth and development of warehousing sector, to bring reforms in the agricultural marketing and to increase credit flow in the farm sector, the government introduced a negotiable warehouse receipt system in the country by enacting the Warehousing (Development and Regulation) Act, 2007 which is in place since 2010.
- The government constituted the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA) in 2010 for implementation of the provisions of the Act.
- The Negotiable Warehouse Receipts (NWRs) issued against stocks of farm produces deposited by the farmers in warehouses would help the farmers in seeking loan from banks.
- It would help overcoming the situation of distress sale of agricultural commodities by the farmers during peak harvest season.
Central Warehousing Corporation:
- Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) set up 1957 under this Department to provide scientific storage facilities for agricultural produces, implements and other notified commodities.
- By August 2018, CWC is operating 431 warehouses with a total storage capacity of 100.28 lakh MT including 44 custom bonded warehouses, 29 container freight stations/inland clearance depots, 3 air cargo complexes and 3 temperature controlled warehouses for providing services to the export/import trade.
Export and Import of Foodgrains |
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Export Policy of Rice and Wheat |
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Sugar |
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Sugar Production |
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Export of Sugar |
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Import of Sugar |
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Review of Distribution of Sugar to Antyodaya Anna Yojana Families |
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Ethanol Blending Petrol Programme |
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Sugar Development Fund |
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Edible Oils:
- The Department of Food and Public Distribution deals with issues related to the vegetable oil processing industries, price control, inter-state trade and commerce and also supply and distribution of vanaspati, oilseeds, vegetable oil, cakes and fats.
International Cooperation |
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SAARC Food Bank |
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Food and Agricultural Organisation and Committee on World Food Security |
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International Grains Council |
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Food Processing Industries:
- The Ministry of Food Processing Industries was set up in July 1988 to give an impetus to the development of the food processing sector in the country.
- Later this Ministry was made a Department and brought under the Ministry of Agriculture.
- It was again made a ministry in 2001 and named Ministry of Food Processing Industries.
- The Ministry is concerned with formulation and implementation of the policies for the food processing industries within the overall national priorities and objectives.
Food Processing Industries |
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Contribution of Food Processing Sector |
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Employment in Food Processing Sector |
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FDI in Food Processing Sector |
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Food Processing and Make in India |
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Food Parks and Cold Chain |
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Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana |
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Mega Food Parks Scheme |
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Scheme of Operation Greens |
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