The food ministry has directed top officials at its public-sector companies, Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and Food Corporation of India (FCI), to come up with a strategy for raising ₹ 29,000 crore via asset monetisation in the next three years. This initiative is part of the govt’s asset monetisation programme, which had been announced in 2021-22 Budget.
“CWC has been mandated to monetise its underutilised assets,” said a senior food ministry official. “It does have a presence in 423 locations and a land holding of 3,500 acres. CWC has been urged to enlist private investment and expertise in order to make use of its infrastructure.’
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He stated that CWC has a warehouse storage capacity of 13 million tonnes, which can be increased by 20percent by simply verticalizing space.
‘The existing food grain godowns can be stacked up to 24 bags high, generating an additional ₹ 1,000 crore in revenue each year.’ We are also considering inviting private enterprises to help us build greenfield warehouse storage infrastructure on vacant land.
“We expect to meet our goals,” he stated. CWC would also demolish existing godowns to build multi-story warehouses. “Over the years, e-commerce and third-party logistics have raised demand for warehouse operations. It’s an opportunity to increase revenue,” he explained.
According to the official, the government is also assessing the use of FCI infrastructure. It has an abundance of godowns that are underutilised. “We utilized technology to bring all of the godowns onto a single online platform. This will increase effectiveness and accountability in the system, which may help in the monetisation of infrastructure,” he noted.
Also Read: Union Budget 2021 Highlights – Agri and allied sector
Food minister Piyush Goyal recently told CWC officials to set an exponential growth target for the next five years. Goyal also ordered them to complete all 177 projects approved since 2014 in order to generate 1.4 million tonnes of extra storage.
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