BHUBANESWAR: Even as the farmers are crying foul over delay in procurement of paddy leading to lapse of tokens, the Odisha government is lagging behind in both purchase of paddy under minimum support price system and delivery of custom milled rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
In the ongoing kharif marketing season (KMS), the State government agencies have procured 36.33 lakh tonne of paddy under the decentralised procurement system as against 43.98 lakh tonne during the same period last year.
In the delivery of custom milled rice (CMR), the State is way behind last year’s achievement. As per FCI procurement data, the State has so far delivered 12,313 tonne of custom milled rice to the Central agency against the last year’s figure of 4.56 lakh tonne.
However, the progress in milling rice for distribution under different food security schemes is comparatively better than last year. The Odisha State Civil Supply Corporation (OSCSC), the government agency mandated for paddy procurement and supply of rice under public distribution, has received over 2.87 lakh tonne of rice against 2.51 lakh tonne during the corresponding period last year. The total rice procurement till end of January 2022 was 2.99 lakh tonne against 7 lakh tonne last year.
As the blame game over lifting of parboiled rice between the State and Centre continues, the rice millers who are benefitting the most out of it are going slow as they are not keen to supply raw rice to the FCI.
“We have sufficient stock of parboiled rice in our warehouse. As FCI refused to lift parboiled rice from this kharif marketing season, there is hardly any space to accommodate paddy and rice at the same time,” said a rice miller from Western Odisha.
The Department of Food Distribution and Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Food, had intimated the State government on August 3, 2021 that the FCI will not lift parboiled rice from Odisha from the next KMS (2021-22). The issue was raised by BJD MPs in the Rajya Sabha last week.
The State government has targeted to procure 63 lakh tonne of paddy (nearly 42 lakh tonne rice) in the kharif season and 14 lakh tonne paddy (around 10 lakh tonne rice) in rabi season.