Online Storage Management (OSM):
The Department of Food and Public Distribution under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution with its principal agency, FCI, has developed a roadmap to roll out Online Storage Management (OSM) in the country.
- The OSM envisages putting in place a single source of information for the food grains stored in the country for central pool through integrating State portals with the central portal.
- The OSM will develop an ecosystem of storage management applications across the DCP States, each being capable of capturing the Minimum Storage Specifications (MSS).
- These MSSs , which have been identified through intense and elaborate discussions with the concerned States and FCI are : capability to compute storage capacity , depict storage point-wise stock position, stack-wise, truck-wise linkage, quality parameters.
- This would help in route optimization for distribution as well.
- This exercise, expected to be completed by Mar’22, will improve efficiency and transparency in stocking, storage, movement and distribution of foodgrains.
- It will help in driving down costs of food storage and distribution by checking leakages in the entire process.
- It will also enable the Government with readily available information for both monitoring and fast-paced decision making to benefit the stakeholders, especially PDS consumer whose welfare is the priority of the government.
