'Procuring 20 percent of paddy crop is a big task. FCI procured 20 percent in the late 1970s and in the last few years, this had dropped to just 2-3 percent. So this is a big challenge for us,' said FCI's Punjab region assistant general manager M.S. Sarang.

In 2007-08 and 2008-09, FCI had procured only 1.45 lakh tonnes and 2.13 lakh tonnes of paddy from Punjab.

Chander said Punjab had a storage capacity of over nearly 19 million tonnes. 'There are 123 FCI depots and presently we are utilising only 75 percent of our storage capacity.'