The Food Corporation of India plans to rework its supply-chain management. A consultant will help the corporation assess the current system and suggest improvements.

The nodal agency that procures and distributes foodgrains across the country annually buys 250 lakh tonnes of wheat and 300 lakh tonnes of rice. In 2010-11, it lost Rs 482 crore from storage and transit loss of foodgrains.

Taking 2010-11 as the base year, the consultant should assess the Railway's performance on areas such as availability of rakes according to the plan, honouring monthly plans and their impact on utilisation of storage capacity in godowns, and reasons for bunching of rakes at receiving godowns.

New tech

The consultant should examine the scope of introducing new technologies for material handling, examine characteristics of a desirable logistics model and suggest a mix of transport, including use of coastal shipping, the corporation said. The consultant will also study whether turn-key logistics service providers could be engaged, and, if feasible, specify the scope of activities that can be managed through such agencies.

Linear programming, a technique the corporation applies to manage movement of stocks, is of limited used as all loading railheads and recipient railheads cannot handle full rakes. At times, demands of nearby railheads are combined so that a full rake is used to reduce operational cost and time.

Foodgrains are transported from surplus regions, such as Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, to consuming or deficit regions. A detailed monthly movement plan is charted out to help the Railways in allotting rakes and ensuring smooth movement of food grains.

When the demand of a railhead is less than a rake, then demands of nearby centres are combined so that instead of operating two half rakes a full rake is operated.

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