Why in news?

Fifteen State Governments have identified their respective districts (1 district per state) for implementing the Pilot Scheme.

The Pilot Scheme has been approved for a period of three years beginning 2019-2020 with a total budget outlay of Rs.174.6 Crore. Already 5 states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh have started the distribution of fortified rice in their respective identified districts.

Why was it required?

• The Department of Food & Public Distribution (DFPD) has been running a “Centrally Sponsored Pilot Scheme on Fortification of Rice & its distribution through Public Distribution System”.
• The government has laid emphasis on scaling up of the distribution of fortified rice in the country.
• The FCI has been asked to come up with a comprehensive plan for procurement and distribution of fortified rice in all the Districts of the country under Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) & Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme from 2021-2022.
• Special focus would be placed on supplying fortified rice to the 112 specially identified Aspirational Districts of the country.

What needs to be done?

• For realizing the goals there is a need to scale up supply of Fortified Rice Kernels (FRK), whose availability is currently is at a meagre quantity of 15,000 MT per annum.
• Covering 112 Aspirational Districts for PDS, ICDS and MDM would mean a requirement of nearly 130 Lakh MT of Fortified Rice, for which FRK supply capacity in the country needs to go up to nearly 1.3 Lakh MT.  
• If the entire PDS (NFSA) rice supply which is of the order of about 350 Lakh MT is to be fortified, then there has to be an uninterrupted supply pipeline of FRK from the industry of the order of about 3.5 Lakh MT.
• Further, there are nearly 28,000 Rice Mills in the country which need to be equipped with Blending Machines etc. for mixing of FRK with normal rice.
• FCI has been asked to tie up with the rice mills in different regions for necessary investments in this regard.
• The operational readiness of the FCI would help in the successful scaling up of procurement and supply of fortified rice in a phased manner from 2021-2022 onwards.

Food Fortification

Food fortification – also known as food enrichment – is when nutrients are added to food at higher levels than what the original food provides. This is done to address micronutrient deficiencies across populations, countries and regions.

Governments working with industry, international agencies and NGOs have used this method to help reduce and eliminate micronutrient deficiencies in their populations.

Fortification of centrally-processed staple foods is a simple, affordable and viable approach to reach large sections of a country’s population with iron, folic acid, and other essential micronutrients.

Source: PIB