CWC Told to Begin Godown Construction at Anandapur.

Faced with storage constraint, the State Government has requested the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) to start construction of the 10,500-tonne capacity godown at Anandapur in Keonjhar district.

The Odisha State Warehousing Corporation (OSWC) had entrusted the construction of the godown at Anandapur to CWC in 2013 under the private entrepreneurs guarantee (PEG) scheme for augmenting its storage capacity in the form of covered godowns.

The State PSU had taken over possession of six acres of Government land in November 2013 and conveyed the administrative approval of the project worth `8.30 crore to CWC for construction of the godown.

The project is still under tendering process and the financial bid is waiting for approval of CWC headquarters in Delhi.

The State has failed to augment storage capacity under PEG scheme due to delay in construction of the Anandapur godown by CWC, official sources said.

At present, the State Warehousing Corporation has storage capacity of 4.87 lakh tonne.

The Centre launched the PEG scheme in 2008 for augmenting the storage capacity in the form of covered godowns and to reduce the dependence on cover and plinth (CAP) storage.

The State Government adopted the CAP storage model to create additional space for 10 lakh tonnes for storage of paddy procured from farmers during the current kharif marketing season (KMS).

Market yards of the Regulated Market Committees (RMCs) having boundary and office space have been used for CAP storage. Each CAP location is having capacity to store at least 5000 tonnes of paddy.


THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS