New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS): In an effort to enhance the efficiency and accountability of food grain procurement and distribution, the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) on Friday signed an MoU with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for the current fiscal.

The move reflects the government’s commitment to refine the public distribution system (PDS) and to ensure that food subsidy funds are managed with the highest level of efficiency by way of overall enhancement in the performance of FCI operations and its depots.

The MoU outlines specific performance benchmarks (including performance benchmarking of FCI depots) and accountability measures, aimed at optimising the use of public funds in managing food security operations.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said that performance benchmarking of FCI depots contains depot efficiency parameters like capacity utilisation, operational losses, security measures, modernisation and automation of processes.

“It is appropriate that such large public expenditure is to be evaluated for their cost-effectiveness and value for money. This entails benchmarking of performance on critical operational parameters and establishing institutional accountability,” said the ministry.

Meanwhile, the food processing industries in the country have emerged as an important part of the country's economy with an increasing contribution to GDP, employment and exports.

The percentage share of processed food export in agri-food exports has gone up to 23.4 per cent in 2023-24 from 13.7 per cent in 2014-15,

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has approved 41 Mega Food Parks, 399 Cold Chain projects, 76 Agro-processing Clusters, 588 Food Processing Units under PMKSY scheme as on June 30 this year.

During the last eight years ending 2022-23, the food processing sector has been growing at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of around 5.35 per cent.