A delegation of BJD MPs on Monday requested Union Food and Civil Supplies Minister Piyush Goyal to ask the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to pick up more rice from Odisha’s warehouses which are running out of space to store the foodgrain procured from farmers of the state.
The MPs said FCI needs to evacuate 30 lakh tonnes of rice from the state's warehouses, but till March 13 it has evacuated only 6.65 lakh tonnes of rice.
"The movement plan for the month of March 2021 has been reduced substantially. At this pace, the surplus 30 lakh of rice cannot be evacuated by the start of the next kharif marketing season or till the start of the next calendar year which will greatly hamper the ensuing Rabi procurement and the next Kharif procurement. If like previous years, FCI lifts only 17 lakh tonnes of rice then 13 lakh tonnes of rice will be left with Odisha. Long storage of rice will lead to discolouration and even FCI will then not accept it. Loss of 1 lakh tonnes of rice due to deterioration in quality would mean a loss of about Rs. 320 crore and the state would lose ₹4160 crore this way," the MPs said in their petition.
The MPs told Goyal that Odisha's own consumption under PDS and other welfare schemes currently comes to around 24 lakh tonnes of rice and supplying the extra rice under NFSA/SFSS to people of the state will be unethical.
{{/usCountry}}The MPs told Goyal that Odisha's own consumption under PDS and other welfare schemes currently comes to around 24 lakh tonnes of rice and supplying the extra rice under NFSA/SFSS to people of the state will be unethical.
{{/usCountry}}In the ensuing kharif marketing season, Odisha has procured nearly 61 lakh tonnes of paddy from farmers, an all time record. "As the growth in the number of farmers selling paddy to the government has gone up, more farmers have benefitted from MSP payment. If the surplus rice is not evacuated, then the paddy procurement by rice millers would come to a halt," the MPs said.
The BJD MPs also requested Goyal to release the subsidy due to Odisha over decentralised procurement system.
Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation which is the nodal agency for paddy procurement in Odisha, has so far pending subsidy dues of Rs. 5,616 crore. While the central subsidy is yet to be released, the state-run corporation has borrowed Rs. 19,000 crore to clear the dues of farmers.