FCI ready to meet demand; TN, Karnataka among those seeking rice above volume supplier for PDS

By Prabhudatta Mishra

Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are among the few States which have requested the Centre to supply over 22 lakh tonnes (lt) of rice by March 31, outside the quantity supplied for the public distribution system (PDS). The Centre is likely to approve the requests soon so that the supply can start from next month for States which want it early, sources said.

Many States are running their own scheme to distribute rice to the people who normally buy from the ration shops and after the Centre stopped the double quota of foodgrains under PDS, that was started during Covid lockdown, the demand has also been robust, the sources said pointing out the request from the States.

“The Centre is offering rice at ₹28/kg plus transport cost from nearest surplus producing State that will be ₹1-1.50/kg extra, taking the total cost to about ₹30/kg. The State can either sell or distribute the rice under its own scheme. Whereas if they buy paddy at the minimum support price, the rice for consumers will not be less than ₹37/kg without subsidy,” a source said.

Bengal may join the queue

It is learnt that Tamil Nadu has sent a request for supply of 75,000 tonnes of rice per month starting from September, while Karnataka wants to lift 2.36 lakh tonnes per month from October. Kerala, another rice-consuming State, has also shown interest but is yet to send its indent to the Centre, the sources said. West Bengal is also likely to send the request, the sources said.

Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and Jammu and Kashmir are others who have sent their requests to the Centre to supply the rice.

However, in some States such as Kerala paddy procurement continues for a longer than usual period. Sales under OMSS cannot be made there as the policy stipulates that no sale should take place during the rice procurement period in a State, the sources said.

Freedom for FCI

The Centre has been trying to sell as much quantity of rice as possible to increase domestic supply and check any price rise. In July, it announced the open market sale scheme (OMSS) till March 31 under which the reserve price was fixed at ₹2,800/quintal (excluding transport cos) for sale to private parties through weekly e-auction, to small traders/individuals and to State governments.

It has also allowed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to sell to Central cooperatives like Nafed, NCCF and Kendriya Bhandar as well as to community kitchens at ₹2,400/quintal.

Meanwhile, the government has been able to sell 35,000 tonnes of rice under OMSS to private traders in the last three auctions, sources said, adding it is quite high considering the total sale of rice was 1.96 lt in entire 2023-24 after it was started from July 2024. The government is hopeful of offloading more quantity of rice in the market this year through auction.

Published Date: August 24, 2024