Bhubaneswar : Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) to accept the surplus parboiled rice from the state for the next Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2021-22.
In a letter Mr Patnaik also requested the Prime Minister to give reasonable time to the state to align itself with the requirements of DFPD.
The CM requested the Prime Minister to personally intervene in the matter and direct the DFPD after the Union government on August 31 last informed the state that Food Corporation of India (FCI) would not accept surplus parboiled rice from Odisha any more.
Mr Patnaik said in upcoming KMS 2021-22 Odisha is estimated to procure 52 lakhs of MT rice . The state’s own requirement of rice under all the schemes is about 24 lakh MT and the state will have a surplus of 28 lakh MT of rice out of which only 4 lakh MT will be raw rice. That leaves the state with a balance of 24 lakh MT of parboiled rice to be procured by FCI.
But the latest decision of the DFPD has put a question mark on the lifting of the said surplus rice from the state.
Mr Patnaik said Odisha is primarily a parboiled rice consuming state and Odisha rice milling industry overwhelmingly reduces parboiled rice. The state is therefore not in a position to face the situation arising due to a paradigm shift in surplus rice deliver profile imposed on the state by the DFPD.
The Chief Minister said non lifting of the surplus parboiled rice from the state due to the restriction imposed by the DFPD has the potential of severely affecting the state’s paddy procurement process.
This will affect about 10 lakh farmers and put them in serious trouble, especially during the covid pandemic situation.
He said Odisha became a Decentralised Procurement sate in KMS 2003-04.
Since then the state has been undertaking MSP operations for procurement of paddy in decentralised mode. Such decentralised procurement has improved the outreach of MSP support to paddy growers. The rice milled from the paddy procured is being used under the National Food Security Act and other welfare schemes of the Union government and the surplus rice is being delivered to FCI.
He said during KMS 2020-21, around 14 lakh farmers have sold their 77.13 lakh MT of paddy equivalent to 52.35 MT of rice) to Odisha government and MSP dues of about Rs 14,444 crores have been transferred to the bank accounts of farmers within 24 hours to 48 hours of the purchase of paddy. This has not only benefitted the farmers but also strengthened the rural economy during covid pandemic.
