CM Naveen Patnaik requests Centre to lift 20 lakh tonne rice from state
BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday requested the Centre to lift surplus rice of around 20 lakh tonne from Odisha in the interest of the farmers. In a letter to Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal, the chief minister said that non-lifting of surplus rice from the state will severely affect the paddy procurement operations in the coming seasons and affect the livelihood of lakhs of farmers whose main source of earning is through MSP operations of paddy procurement.
“In view of above, I would request your personal intervention for issuing a direction to accept additional 20 lakh tonne of surplus rice for the KMS 2022-23 for the interest of farmers,” he added. The CM said Odisha became a Decentralised Procurement (DCP) state from the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2003-04. Since then, the state has been undertaking MSP operations for procurement of paddy in decentralised mode.
He said during 2022-23 kharif season, 14,94,320 farmers have sold paddy to the government at MSP. The rice milled from the paddy is being used under the National Food Security Act and other welfare schemes of the government and the surplus rice is being delivered to the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
About 65.23 lakh tonne of paddy equivalent to 44.23 lakh of kharif custom milled rice has been procured by March 22 and MSP dues of `13,081 crore has been transferred to the bank account of the farmers, he said