NEW DELHI, October 7 — The Food Corporation of India (FCI) in coordination with state civil supplies corporations on Wednesday operationalized nationwide procurement operations for the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS 2026-27), targeting an aggregate procurement of 520 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of rice under the Central Pool.
Operational bulletins released by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution confirmed that active grain procurement has commenced across primary agricultural mandis in Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh. The procurement baseline enforces the Cabinet-notified MSP of ₹2,300 per quintal for common paddy and ₹2,320 per quintal for Grade 'A' paddy, backed by mandatory Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) settlement into farmers' Jan Dhan accounts within 48 hours of electronic warehouse receipt generation.
The Food Secretary emphasized that the deployment of digital e-procurement dashboards and biometric farmer authentication has curbed intermediary leakage and illegal cross-border grain diversion. The procured grain reserves are earmarked to fulfill sovereign statutory entitlements under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), distributing free foodgrains to over 813 million beneficiaries nationwide while maintaining robust central buffer stocks above the mandated operational norms.
The legislative provisions of the National Food Security Act (NFSA, 2013), statutory operations of the Food Corporation of India under the Food Corporations Act 1964, open-market sale schemes (OMSS), and central buffer stocking norms are high-frequency themes across UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Food Security & Public Distribution System). Candidates should recall that NFSA 2013 legally covers up to 75 percent of the rural population and up to 50 percent of the urban population, constituting approximately two-thirds of the total national demographic.