Punjab MSMEs urge Centre to reserve food storage business for small companies

Ludhiana, June 13 (KNN) The Chamber of Industrial & Commercial Undertaking (CICU) has urged the central government to reserve food storage business for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) over big corporate companies.

Speaking about the recently approved Inter-Ministerial Committee for Facilitation of the World’s Largest Grain Storage Scheme in the Cooperative sector, Upkar Singh Ahuja, CICU Pesident, said, “Instead of allocating the business to the corporate world, MSMEs should be given a chance to progress.”

The allocation for the scheme is Rs 1 lakh crore and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Department of Food and Public Distribution and Ministry of Food Processing Industries will be involved in the scheme.

“There’s no doubt that improvement in food storage is the need of the hour as the rough estimates show storage losses in million tonnes. It is a huge national loss that needs to be addressed immediately and Punjab and Maharashtra are the states where maximum food grains are wasted,” Upkar said, adding that humidity and temperature are major contributors to grain loss.

The new concept of silo storage with bulk handling facilities is a highly mechanised and modern way for bulk storage of food grains.

It increases the shelf life of food grains, better preserves grains and is the largest way of storage worldwide, he said.

“MSME sector is facing a hard time and the government is planning to upgrade them, hence the government should give MSMEs a chance in food storage business and help them become global players and can export to other countries,” he said.  (KNN Bureau)