Piyush Goyal Alleges That The Centre Is Refusing To Keep Stocks Of Rice And Check Prices

According to Union Minister Piyush Goyal, the Centre’s decision to withhold rice from certain states in order to prevent the price of the grain from rising on the open market and to maintain people’s access to it at acceptable costs.

After Karnataka accused the Centre of refusing to sell grains from central reserves, this declaration was made amid a political uproar.

When asked about demonstrations against the supply of rice in Karnataka, the Union minister for consumer affairs, food, and public distribution told reporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters that a committee of secretaries had decided to keep the stock of rice in central reserves to “serve 140 crore people of the country” and that states could purchase the rice from the market if they needed to.

As the politics surrounding the supply of rice to Karnataka were noted on Tuesday, there were heated protests by both the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP in various areas of the state.

The Congress staged rallies in each district seat of the state in reaction to claims that the Centre had omitted rice from the Anna Bhagya programme of the Karnataka administration.

Basavaraj Bommai, a former chief minister of Karnataka, was recently imprisoned with a number of other BJP officials for protesting the state government’s failure to fulfil the promise made by the Congress to provide 10 kg of rice to every member of families living below the poverty line.

The Union government recently ended the Open Market Sale Scheme, which provided states with rice and wheat.