Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday urged Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal to permit the ‘in principle approval’ for procurement of 26 lakh tonnes of usna (par-boiled) rice and 14 lakh tonnes of arwa rice by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in the Kharif marketing year 2020-21.
Baghel said in a letter that the Centre has given ‘in principle approval’ for depositing 60 lakh tonnes of rice in the Central pool after the custom milling of paddy to be procured in the Kharif marketing year 2020-21 but due to lack of proper order from the Centre the state could not deposit the rice through FCI.
The state earlier proposed to the Centre to deposit 26 lakh tonnes of usna (par-boiled) rice and 14 lakh tonnes of arwa rice in FCI.
Baghel reminded the Minister that there has also been continuous discussion between the Central government and the Chhattisgarh government on this subject and he (Goyal) had even assured the Chief Minister to issue an order soon.
But no proper permission has been received from the Centre in this regard.
Baghel said in the Kharif marketing year 2020-21, the Central government has agreed to provide only 1.45 lakh new jute gunny bags to the state against a need for 3.50 lakh new jute gunny bags. Of these, only 1.05 lakh bales of new bags have been received.
He added that due to lack of order to deposit custom milling rice in FCI, there has also been a shortage of gunny bags received from miller after milling.
Because of this, despite adequate alternative efforts of the state government, the situation of procurement of paddy at the minimum support price is affected.
This, the Chief Minister warned, will cause problems to the farmers of the state in selling paddy at the minimum support price.
