Odisha government in a bind as FCI stops lifting rice quota

By Bijoy Pradhan

Sitting over a surplus stockpile of 23 lakh tonne custom-milled rice (CMR), and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) not lifting its quota from the millers, the state government is left in a spot of bother. Faced with storage space constraints and low demand of Odisha’s parboiled rice from major consuming states like Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, FCI has stopped lifting CMR from July 30, the last date for offtake of its quota.

“The state government has written to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution for time extension to FCI for lifting of kharif CMR to the central pool as quickly as possible as the warehouses of the state and the rice millers are full to the brim. The central agency is waiting for an instruction from the ministry,” sources in the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department said.

As per the standing agreement of FCI with the state government for the 2024-25 kharif marketing season, the central agency was to lift 50 lakh tonne CMR from the state to the central pool. The state has procured 93 lakh tonne of paddy (kharif+rabi) in the current KMS under minimum support price from the farmers which is equivalent to 62.54 lakh tonne of rice. The state’s own requirement is 24 lakh tonne for distribution under different food security and supplementary nutrition schemes.

FCI is bound by agreement to lift 26 lakh tonne of CMR but has taken just 15.18 lakh tonne as on date, leaving 11.36 lakh tonne in different godowns across the state. The millers have delivered 16.45 lakh tonne rice to the state government for distribution under various schematic programmes.

Taking the rice distributed under PDS and direct lifting by FCI into account, the central agency has procured 31.63 lakh tonne in the last eight months from January to August. “With only three months left for the next kharif paddy procurement to start under price support system from November, it will be an impossible task for FCI to lift the remaining 31.18 lakh tonne (48.9 per cent) of CMR. If the current stock is not evacuated in time, it will severely affect the coming kharif procurement operation,” said a member of the All Odisha Rice Millers’ Association (AORMA). However, even if FCI manages to lift its quota of rice from the state, the government will have another 12 lakh tonne of surplus CMR, the sources added.

This article has been republished from The New Indian Express.