अधिक कार्यकुशलता के लिए भारतीय खाद्य निगम के कामकाज को ख़रीद, भंडारण और वितरण में अलग-अलग करना… भारतीय खाद्य निगम का आमूल रूपांतरण करना।

The 2014 manifesto is specific about what it wanted done to India's food grain agency. Two commitments, a few lines apart: "unbundle FCI operations into procurement, storage and distribution for greater efficiency", and "radically transform the Food Corporation of India (FCI)."

Unbundling did not happen. The Food Corporation of India remains a single organisation performing all three functions under the Food Corporations Act, 1964, as the CAG's audit describes it — "the main agency entrusted with procurement, storage and movement of food grains from surplus States to deficit and consuming States". A high-level committee recommended restructuring in 2015; the structure the manifesto described is not in place.

That leaves the second half — transformation — and the test the manifesto itself proposed for it: greater efficiency. The CAG's performance audit of storage management and movement, tabled on 7 August 2024 and covering 2017-18 to 2021-22, measures exactly that, and it is also a follow-up on recommendations from an earlier 2013 audit and two parliamentary committees.

The single largest item is something the corporation simply did not do. Indian Railways offers a long term tariff contract giving discounted freight and priority in wagon allotment to bulk customers. "FCI did not avail Long Term Tariff Contract policy for its movement of food grains through railways and as a result, it could avail the rebate of ₹1736.11 crore on the amount of freight paid during 2017-18 to 2021-22 besides priority in rake allotment." For an organisation whose core cost is moving grain across the country, that is a structural saving left on the table for five years.

The storage findings describe the same problem from the other end. In Punjab and Haryana, "there was avoidable hiring of 10.55 LMT and consequent avoidable expenditure of ₹62.76 crore" because capacity was hired while the corporation's own open storage stood vacant. The same vacant space should also have let it take wheat directly from state agencies rather than paying them to hold it; because it did not, it "incurred avoidable Carry over Charges of ₹170.26 crore paid to SGAs."

Movement compounded storage. Grain was not despatched out of the surplus states fast enough even though the deficit states had room: short despatch of 84.253 lakh tonnes from Punjab and 43.99 lakh tonnes from Haryana meant "FCI had to bear storage charges of ₹182.29 crore", while "there was vacant space available in recipient states like Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Rajasthan." And one obvious efficiency was blocked by the absence of a rule: with no guidelines permitting grain to go straight from railhead to state godowns, "even a 10 per cent direct issue of food grains from Railheads to State Government godowns would have resulted in savings of ₹158.88 crore during 2017-18 to 2021-22 in Jharkhand region" alone.

Contract management leaked in both directions. Damages of ₹17.02 crore due from the concessionaire building silos in Bihar and Haryana were never recovered "in violation of terms of the contract", while an "undue favour of ₹5.83 crore" went to a concessionaire through a reduced railway track cost in Assam. Land delays cost ₹18.08 crore extra in Assam and ₹16.85 crore extra in Bihar. And at Sangrur a silo was taken over with no despatch facility, blocking stock inside it and leaving ₹6.95 crore of spending unfruitful because the railway siding went unused.

One finding is not about money at all. Grain held for less than six months escapes testing under food safety norms, and wheat taken as direct delivery at railheads "are transported to the consuming regions without tests under FSSA." Some of what reaches ration shops has never been checked against the standard.

The promise was to unbundle and radically transform. The structure is unchanged, and on the audited record the inefficiency the promise was aimed at — grain sitting in hired space while owned space is empty, freight paid at full rate, movement plans that leave charges accruing at both ends — is documented in the hundreds of crores. Our verdict is not supported.