Following Union Education Minister Pradhan’s request, the Center would remove the extra 10L tons of rice
The Center authorized the removal of an extra 10 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice from Odisha, after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s request, days earlier, that his Food and Public Distribution counterpart Piyush Goyal remove excess rice from the state for the benefit of farmers.
The rice will be purchased by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from the government. In order to increase the objective for paddy procurement and remove excess parboiled rice from the state during the current Kharif marketing season (KMS), Pradhan had asked Goyal to step in. In response to Pradhan, Goyal said, “The department of Food and Public Distribution has accorded approval for acceptance of 10 lakh tonne of fortified parboiled rice by FCI in Odisha in the KMS 2023-24.”
The state government has set a 79 lakh tonne paddy purchase goal or around 54 lakh tonne of rice. Since the Center lowered its goal of obtaining 44.28 lakh tonnes of rice from the state for the central pool as opposed to 53.83 lakh tonnes obtained during the previous kharif season, the state would have almost 10 lakh tonnes of excess rice.
According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the states and FCI, the surplus rice that the state government purchases overrun the amount allotted for targeted PDS and other welfare programs would be given to FCI. To fulfill the nation’s total consumption needs, the latter will have the choice to designate whether the extra rice that the state government will contribute to the central pool will be given in the form of raw or parboiled rice.
Since rice is usually consumed in a parboiled condition, Odisha produces the majority of its parboiled rice. A growing amount of stock in the central pool makes it harder for FCI to lift the excess parboiled rice. This season, four lakh tons of parboiled rice might be purchased by the FCI Odisha area. A top FCI officer said, “The approval has now been extended to 10 lakh tonne.”
Odisha was permitted by the Center to provide 18.38 lakh tons of parboiled rice in 2021–2022 and 2022–2023.
For the advantage of farmers
FCI will acquire the extra 10 lakh tons of parboiled rice.
The state government has set a 79 lakh tonne goal for paddy acquisition.
A drama with rice: BJD
Bhubaneswar: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s care for the state’s farmers, according to BJD on Friday, is a new drama. Snehangiri Chhuria, the president of Biju Mahila Janata Dal, said that Pradhan, who had been mute on the subject of too much rice for the previous ten years, brought it up in a letter to a fellow cabinet member before to the elections. Nonetheless, she expressed her gratitude to Union Minister Piyush Goyal for choosing to purchase parboiled rice from Odisha.
