The Fact News Service
Chandigarh, March 3
Acting as per the visionary guidance of the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister, Punjab, Lal Chand Kataruchak, the Route Optimization study of Punjab undertaken by World Food Programme (WFP) team with Government of Punjab was presented by the Director, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Ghanshyam Thori at New Delhi, amid presence of Principal Secretary Rahul Bhandari, in the meeting held with Secretaries of All States/UT.
The Director mentioned that the State of Punjab was the first to voluntarily undertake Optimization of the Supply Chain Management study conducted by World Food Programme. The objective was to reduce the transportation cost incurred by the State during the distribution and procurement of Food grains under Public Distribution System (PDS).
Keeping in view the said objectives, the State co-ordinated with the WFP team to commence the optimization of Supply Chain Management. The Director stated that the State Government leveraged technology and developed an app to capture Latitude (Lat) and Longitude (Long) of Procurement Centres/ Mandi Yards, Godowns all four agencies (Pungrain, Markfed, Punsup & Punjab State Warehouse Coporation (PSWC) and Milling Centers for the study. All the details were shared with the WFP team to conduct the optimization exercise.
Subsequently, the WFP team successfully submitted its report with optimized supply chain result. As per the result provided, average distance of current mapping of the procurement Centres/ Mandi Yards is 5.29 KM which is very close to optimization result which is 4.52 average Kms. In the case of wheat distribution, average distance of current mapping is 13.33 KM which is very close to optimized results which is 9.14 average KM. The Director, FCS&CA highlighted that the State Government plans to implement the optimized mapping in upcoming Procurement Cycle and NFSA Distribution Cycle i.e. April, 2023.
