Over 7 lakh tonnes of foodgrain damaged in decade: RTI info

While the Food Security Bill is expected to be tabled in the Parliament soon, it has come to light that as much as 7.42 lakh tonnes of foodgrain, worth Rs330.71 crore, was damaged in the past 10 years in the country due to various reasons.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has revealed this startling information in response to an RTI query, filed by a local activist Om Prakash Sharma.

In its reply, the FCI has stated that the total value of the foodgrain damaged between April 2000 and March 2011 was Rs330.71 crore.

The statistics provided by the FCI show that through the decade the damage was maximum in 2000-01, with 1.82 lakh tonnes of foodgrain worth Rs 67.52 crore.

It goes on to mention that the damage had gone down to 0.65 lakh tonnes in 2001-02, but went up to 1.35 lakh tonnes in the subsequent year again.

As far as year 2010-11 was concerned, foodgrain approximately worth Rs3.40 crore was damaged, the FCI said.