BHUBANESWAR: Amid Odisha government’s allegation that parboiled rice is not being lifted on time by Food Corporation of India (FCI), the Centre on Saturday informed Rajya Sabha that the state has delivered 22.48 lakh tonne of rice against the target of 36.36 lakh tonne from December, 2022 to January, 2024.
Similarly, the state has delivered only 1.06 lakh tonne rice against target of 3.25 lakh tonne during the kharif marketing season (KMS) of 2023-24, from December, 2023 to January, 2024. This was informed by Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Niranjan Jyoti in response to a query by BJD MP Manas Mangaraj.
The minister further said 53.85 lakh tonne of custom milled rice (CMR) has been delivered by state government during 2022-23 KMS to the central pool up to January 3, 2024, out of which 44.18 lakh tonne was in the form of parboiled rice.
Odisha, being a decentralised procurement (DCP) state, has retained 31.37 lakh tonne (7.51 lakh tonne raw rice and 23.86 lakh tonne parboiled rice) for its own requirement and the remaining 22.48 lakh tonne was delivered to FCI. Asserting that FCI has sufficient storage space to accommodate surplus CMR offered by the state and is prompt in evacuation of rice from Odisha, the union minister said the Centre has allowed state government to deliver surplus fortified parboiled rice of 10 lakh tonne during 2023-24 KMS.
As per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with state governments, the minister said, “If the stock of rice procured by a state government exceeds its allocation under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and other welfare scheme (OWS), such excess stock shall be handed over to FCI by the state government.”
However, FCI will have the option to specify whether such excess rice that would be handed over to it for central pool by the state government will be in the form of raw rice or parboiled rice to meet overall consumption requirement of the country, Jyoti added.
The Centre had approved to lift additional 10 lakh tonne of parboiled rice from Odisha following a request by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan last month.
Rice target
State has delivered only 1.06 lakh tonne rice against target of 3.25 lakh tonne from Dec 2023 to Jan 2024
53.85 lakh tonne of custom milled rice delivered by state govt during 2022-23 KMS