BHUBANESWAR: The BJD on Tuesday mounted pressure on the NDA government over issues like delayed release of food (paddy procurement) subsidy, non-lifting of surplus rice and short supply of gunny bags to the state.
While party workers staged dharna near the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns across the state to press for its demands, the BJD parliamentarians met Union food and public distribution minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi to discuss the issues.
“Paddy procurement operations under MSP is a task which is in the domain of the Centre. In order to extend the outreach of minimum support price to remote, far-flung and inaccessible areas, the state government took over the responsibility of procuring paddy from farmers in 2003-04,” said a memorandum submitted by BJD MPs to Goyal.
On the delay in releasing food subsidy to the state, the BJD MPs said as per the MoU with the Centre, there has to be zero financial liability on the state government with regard to permissible items of cost and procurement of rice to be borne by the Centre.
“The anticipated cost (to be released by the Centre for procuring rice) should be released in the form of advance subsidy at the rate of 90% of admissible claim in the first month of every quarter. The state government or state civil supplies corporation shall be paid quarterly provisional subsidy after deduction of the advanced amount. However, the release of advance and provisional subsidy to Odisha is irregular,” said BJD Rajya Sabha member Sujeet Kumar. The BJD claims that food subsidy worth Rs 6,500 crore is pending against the Centre.
The party also sought Goyal’s intervention over non-lifting of surplus rice from Odisha by the FCI. “The paddy procured by the state government is milled to rice through private millers and the rice is distributed under various social security schemes. As per the MoU, the surplus stock of rice, which is in excess of allocation in favour of welfare schemes, are handed over to FCI. Though paddy procurement has been increasing over the years, the evacuation of rice by the FCI has not witnessed growth,” said Kumar.
