Bhubaneswar: Odisha Government today urged the Centre to evacuate surplus rice from the State. In a letter to Union Minister, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik stated that non-evacuation of surplus rice from the State will severely affect the State’s paddy procurement operations in the coming seasons.
“I would request your kind personal intervention for issuing a direction to accept additional 20 lakh MT of surplus rice (17 lakh MT fortified parboiled rice and 03 lakh MT fortified raw rice) for the KMS 2022-23 for the interest of farmers,” Patnaik stated in his letter.
The Centre had issued a target of 10.33 LMT (4 LMT in 1st phase & 6.33 in 2nd phase) of fortified parboiled rice for acceptance by FCI during KMS 2022-23 (Kharif) for the State of Odisha. So, the State will be left with approximately 20 lakh MT of surplus rice, he added.
The CM said that Odisha became a Decentralized 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 decentralized mode. The Decentralized Procurement has improved the outreach of MSP support to paddy growers.
During this Kharif season a record 14,94,320 number of farmers have sold paddy to the Government at MSP. The rice milled from the paddy so procured 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), the letter read.
Patnaik further wrote that paddy procurement for Kharif season (KMS 2022-23) is going to be closed by March 31. About 65.23 LMT of paddy equivalent to 44.23 LMT Kharif CMR has been procured as on March 22 and MSP dues of about Rs.13,081 crore have been transferred to the bank account of the farmers within 24 to 48 hours of purchase of paddy.
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