BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government on Tuesday sought the intervention of the Centre to remove the cap on delivery of parboiled rice to Food Corporation of India (FCI). Also expressing concern over the huge food subsidy bill pending with the FCI , the government further requested for early release of Rs 6,039 crore that is due to the State.
In a letter to Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal, State Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain said, “Odisha is primarily a parboiled rice consuming State with consumption around 24 lakh tonne. The estimated surplus that needs to be evacuated by FCI here in the current kharif marketing season will be 30 lakh tonne.”
Drawing Goyal’s attention to the recent communication of FCI asking the State to limit the delivery of surplus parboiled rice to 50 per cent of the quantity delivered last year and its refusal to accept parboiled rice during rabi season, Swain said this is not acceptable as only six out of 30 districts of the State consume raw rice. This instruction of FCI will have far reaching impact on Odisha, he said.
Meanwhile, BJP State general secretary Lekhashree Samansinghar said the State government is more worried for millers than the farmers. She said the BJD is trying to give a picture that the ongoing paddy procurement will be hit and the farmers will be affected if the Centre failed to rescind the FCI letter forthwith. “In reality, the government is worried for the rice millers. The parboiled rice weighs more than raw rice and millers earn more profit by selling paddy chaff (rice husk) which is now high in demand by the oil industry for production of rice bran oil,” she said.