‘The FCI programme has become a 30-year guaranteed profit machine for Adani and one other corporation, funded by public money’
NEW DELHI — The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has condemned the Centre and demanded an immediate Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Food Corporation of India’s ₹20,000 crore grain silo programme. The demand came after an investigation by The News Minute and Newslaundry revealed key anti-monopoly safeguards were removed.
In a statement issued here on Monday, the AIKS said the report has exposed how the government systematically dismantled its own anti-monopoly safeguards to hand over FCI’s nearly Rs 20,000 crore grain storage programme overwhelmingly to the Adani Group and one other private corporation.
Across two phases of FCI’s “Hub and Spoke” silo scheme, Adani Agri Logistics Ltd (AAL) and Leap India Food & Logistics Pvt Ltd (LIFL) together bagged 110 out of 134 silo contracts worth more than Rs 16,500 crore. Around 46.5 lakh metric tonnes of grain out of a total 60 LMT will be stored in silos owned by just these two private companies, the AIKS said.
Most damning: FCI itself had proposed an “anti-monopoly” clause to stop a single company from cornering the projects. In a crucial May 2022 meeting, NITI Aayog and the Department of Economic Affairs opposed it, arguing for market forces to prevail. The clause was dropped — and Adani then won every single contract in the second round of Phase 1.
According to the AIKS, four deliberate policy decisions engineered this monopoly:
Bundle Sizes to Exclude Smaller Bidders: DEA and NITI Aayog recommended bundle sizes of Rs 800–1,000 crore. The final bundles in the DBFOO round reached nearly Rs 3,900 crore — nearly four times the recommendation — ensuring only corporations with the deepest pockets could compete.
Anti-Monopoly Clause Killed: FCI argued the one-bundle-per-bidder restriction was necessary “to prevent monopolisation.” NITI Aayog overruled it, insisting that “in the interest of competition and letting market forces prevail, no restriction on the number of projects that can be bid or awarded to a single entity may be made.” Removing anti-monopoly protection in the name of competition is Orwellian doublespeak.
Technical Experience Criteria Removed: DEA argued that shortlisting should be based solely on financial capacity, opening bids to “financial sector players who may not possess the necessary technical experience.” Companies with zero background in grain storage could now win contracts to store India’s food security reserves.
Price Competition Eliminated: NITI Aayog scrapped the reverse auction mechanism, arguing it “may not yield the presumed benefits” for infrastructure projects. Sealed bids would now win without further price competition — eliminating the strongest check on inflated contract values.
The result: 70 of 80 Phase 1 contracts — 87.5 percent — went to Adani Agri Logistics Ltd, accounting for Rs 9,713 crore out of the total Rs 11,915 crore awarded, across Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The AIKS has demanded immediate suspension of all FCI silo contracts awarded to Adani Agri Logistics Ltd and Leap India Food & Logistics pending a full independent audit. It also wanted an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), restoration of FCI’s public character, and a suo motu probe by the Competition Commission of India.
The Kisan Sabha also sought full public disclosure of all PPPAC, SFC, and Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) deliberations related to the FCI silo programme.
The Kisan Sabha warned that without a JPC probe and reversal, control of India’s food security infrastructure will remain with private monopolies on decades-long profit-linked contracts.
Rajan Kshirsagar, AIKS President, said: “This is not a policy error — it is policy capture. NITI Aayog walked into a meeting and killed the anti-monopoly clause. Adani then swept every contract. India’s farmers are already fighting for land, water, seeds, and MSP. Now, the very infrastructure through which their grain passes is in Adani’s hands. AIKS will fight until this is reversed.”
Ravula Venkaih, General Secretary of the Kisan Sabha, said the FCI programme was meant to solve India’s storage crisis — a crisis that directly hits farmers’ price realisation. “Instead, it has become a 30-year guaranteed profit machine for Adani and one other corporation, funded by public money.”
