NEW DELHI: The Food Corporation of India (FCI) under the central government has helped the Punjab government tide over a crisis which would have hit wheat procurement scheduled to start from April 10, by lifting 22.42 million tonnes of the foodgrain held with the state agencies since 2018-19. Failure to clear the stock would have come in the way of the Punjab government to take advance loans from banks to pay the MSP to farmers for the fresh procurment.
In Punjab, farmers sell their foodgrains to five state procuring agencies (SPAs) and they pay the money to farmers. Later this amount is reimbursed by FCI. To pay the amount to farmers immediately, these state agencies take advance loan from an SBI-led consortium of banks. As per rules, this Food Credit advance has to be repaid within three years. But the Punjab government could not pay the loan of Rs 89,000 crore from 2018-19 as the stock was still to be lifted.
India News: NEW DELHI: The Food Corporation of India (FCI) under the central government has helped the Punjab government tide over a crisis which would have hit w.