National food policy soon: Shanta Kumar

thiruvanthapuram: union food minister shantha kumar on sunday said the country will soon have a new food policy which would provide remunerative prices for foodgrains, its easy availability to consumers and retention of public distribution system.


"as a hunger-free india is the nda government''s aim, a new foodgrain policy would be announced within a month," he told reporters here. an experts'' committee to work out the policy details was expected to submit its report within a month, he said. "remunerative prices to the farmers, easy availability of foodgrains, retention of pds will be the basic aims of the policy," he said. the centre was already spending rs 20,000 crore for food subsidy which accounted for a major chunk of the budget. asked about the procurement policy, he said the centre preferred this job to be done by the states but it was still ready to pay for the procurement. he said, however, many state governments were not willing to comply with this. the fci could not all alone conduct the procurement in view of good food production throughout the country, he said. the minister said there were no chances of restoring ration sugar to non-bpl category in kerala.