State Food Ministers to discuss kharif procurement, food security on July 5

A national conference of State Food and Civil Supplies Ministers is scheduled to be held on Wednesday in the national capital to discuss kharif procurement, PMGKAY and food/nutritional security. Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal will chair the conference.

Junior Ministers Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Ashwini Kumar Choubey will also be present at the annual conference.

State food Ministers and food secretaries across the country will be present at the event that will help promote collaborations and knowledge sharing for the overall development of food and civil supplies.

"The conference is aimed at developing an action plan for the procurement of coarse grains during Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2023-24, discussing key initiatives undertaken by the government for effective implementation of PMGKAY, disseminating best practices of States/UTs, and strengthening the focus on food and nutritional security," an official statement said.

At the event, the Union Minister will launch a sugar-ethanol portal, a nine-year achievement booklet.

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Other key agenda points for discussion include the implementation of SMART-PDS, Supply-Chain Optimization, grading of procurement centres, and transformation of Fair Price Shops (FPSs), among others.

The conference will serve as a platform to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities for achieving the transformation of the food and nutrition security ecosystem in the country and lay down the roadmap for 2023-24.

In the last nine years, the Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry has undertaken numerous initiatives ensuring targeted and timely delivery of food grains to the poor and vulnerable sections of society.

The implementation of the flagship scheme, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) from January 1, 2023, has further enabled the provision of free food grains to nearly 80 crore beneficiaries.

Through these significant measures, the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been strengthened and its efficiency enhanced.

To further sustain the progress and improvement in the system, the Department is planning to introduce new initiatives to enhance the efficiencies of the system and strengthen the focus on food and nutritional security, it added.

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