Food Corporation of India: Making Public Procurement More Inclusive and Efficient

This case concerns the issue of enhancing the inclusivity and efficiency of public procurement operations undertaken by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in Uttar Pradesh. The FCI was the premier central government agency entrusted with efficient management of minimum support price (MSP)-based public procurement operations, maintenance of buffer stocks for ensuring food security and assisting states in operating their public distribution systems. The Uttar Pradesh region came under the north zone of the FCI. Mr Girish Kumar, General Manager of Uttar Pradesh region of the FCI, was exploring ways to make procurement operations inclusive and efficient. Girish received feedback from a brainstorming session of the procurement team in which recommendations of a recently conducted concurrent evaluation study of public procurement in Uttar Pradesh were discussed. He wanted to amalgamate his domain knowledge with insights from the concurrent evaluation study for an actionable plan to design a more inclusive and efficient MSP-based public procurement system.