To ensure effective monitoring of Quality of foodgrains Food Corporation of India (FCI) is having laboratories at the Headquarters, Zonal, Regional and District level. Each of the FCI storage depots are also attached with one laboratory for analysis of foodgrain. The number of new laboratories that have been established by the FCI during the last four years (2015-16 to 2018-19) are as under.
| Financial Year | No of Depot Labs |
| 2015-16 | 07 |
| 2016-17 | 02 |
| 2017-18 | 02 |
| 2018-19 | 06 |
In order to modernize the Quality Control laboratory at Institute of Food Security (Gurugram), FCI has entered into an agreement with Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysuru and modernization is being undertaken for in house testing of foodgrain samples for chemical parameters. In the FCI laboratories old Moisture Meters have been replaced with Digital Moisture Meters. Moreover Whiteness Meters and Computerised Rice Analyser has also been installed in some of the laboratories of FCI.
During the period the laboratories of Indian Grain Storage Management and Research Institute (IGMRI) have also been upgraded with modern equipments for analysis of Pesticide Residues and My cotoxin contamination in Foodgrains stored in depots.
All the laboratories of FCI are presently manned by technical cadre staff along with other related technical work. Thus there is no exclusive recruitment of staff for manning of these laboratories. During the last 5 years, recruitment was held in 2015 and number of technical staff joined in FCI is as under:
| Technical staff category | No of Candidates joined in 2015 |
| Cat-III | 1574 |
| Cat-II | 127 |
This information was given in a written reply by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Danve Raosaheb Dadarao in the Rajya Sabha today
