Briefing the media on the achievement of FCI since its inception in 1964, FCI Chairman and Managing Director Ashok Kumar Meena mentioned, “There isn’t any trigger for concern in regards to the availability of rice for buffer.” The amount of rice procured to this point is sweet sufficient to fulfill the requirement of welfare schemes, he mentioned.
Whereas the annual requirement of the rice below all welfare schemes is 40-41 million tonnes (mt), the present season’s (October 2023-September 2024) procurement has reached 31.1 mt till January 2. “We’re nicely heading in the right direction to fulfill the requirement,” Meena mentioned.
Could miss goal
Rice procurement within the first three months because the season started on October 1 has dropped 14 per cent to 29.93 mt from 34.79 mt within the year-ago interval. In October-December 2022, rice procurement was 11 per cent greater than 2021 degree. Specialists see the present yr’s buy could miss the goal of 52.13 mt by an enormous margin.
“One motive for decrease procurement is that paddy costs within the open market are additionally very excessive. The opposite motive is the tempo of procurement was gradual in States like Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh because of meeting elections,” Meena mentioned. The paddy procurement is prone to choose up going ahead as these States are about to announce bonus to farmers, he mentioned.
However, in Uttar Pradesh, paddy procurement is sluggish because the open market costs this yr stay excessive, he mentioned. Based on the FCI, whole foodgrain inventory was 67.32 mt, together with 32.83 mt of unmilled paddy by way of rice, as of January 1.
13% worth hike
FCI is the central nodal company that buys rice and wheat to make sure MSP to the farmers and distributes the grains without cost to 81 crore poor through ration retailers. It additionally makes use of surplus grain by the OMSS scheme to spice up home availability and examine costs.
Based on FCI, 5.9 mt of wheat has been offered within the open market by weekly e-auction below the OMSS since June 2023, which has helped stabilise the retail costs. There was adverse progress in retail wheat costs on y-o-y foundation whereas it about 13 per cent in rice.
As FCI has been providing enormous amount of rice by weekly public sale, although offtake is just not good, the costs is not going to enhance considerably, he mentioned. There was a lukewarm response for rice and FCI has been capable of promote solely 0.15 mt of rice although reserve worth is fastened at ₹29 per kg.
Confirming that there’s a proposal to launch Bharat rice, much like Bharat atta and Bharat Dal, Meena refused to share additional particulars. The federal government has been promoting “Bharat Dal” (gram dal) at ₹60/kg and “Bharat atta” at ₹275/10 kg by cooperatives Nafed, NCCF and Kendriya Bhandar. The FCI has knowledgeable the meals ministry that it has sufficient rice inventory for the scheme if launched. Officers estimate {that a} most of three mt can be required for “Bharat rice”.
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