This decision comes after they raked in ₹9.66 crore from rice exporters between September 2025 and April 2026.

By BL New Delhi Bureau

An internal committee under the Non-Basmati Rice Development Fund (NBDF), managed by the government’s agri-export promotion body APEDA, has decided to invest all amount above ₹ 1 crore in term deposit (after factoring taxes and administrative charges) whereas the fund was designed to use for promotion of non Basmati export.

Between September 25, 2025 and April 30, 2026, APEDA has collected ₹9.66 crore from non-Basmati rice exporters through the mandatory contract registration fee, official sources said.

The Department of Commerce (DoC) in July 2025 had approved the establishment of NBDF to be managed by a panel under Chairman of APEDA as head and eight members including three industry representatives. But the modalities of managing the fund was approved in September when the collection of fee was made effective.

The DoC allowed APEDA to keep 30 per cent share of funds to be collected from registration fee, charged at ₹9.44/tonne (including GST @18 per cent).

In the second meeting of NBDF panel after its formation, which was held last month, the internal auditor presented the fund position, a source said adding APEDA had issued Registration-cum-Allocation Certificate (RCACs) for exports of about 10.23 million tonnes of non-Basmati rice for which it collected ₹9.66 crore as contract registration fee until April 30 since inception. Factoring taxes, services and infrastructure charges @30 per cent payable to APEDA, there may still be ₹5-6 crore available to undertake different activities, industry sources said.

As earlier decided, and accordingly an Internal Investment Committee (IIC) had been formed, the panel has decided that the amount in the NBDF account in excess of ₹1 crore (including current account and sweep balance) shall be invested in term deposits in multiples of ₹50 lakh on a periodic basis, sources said.

The IIC comprises of Secretary, NBDF committee, head of APEDA’s cereal division and some more officials of APEDA. “The objective of the committee is to ensure transparent and effective fund management, provide investment oversight and investment strategy for unutilised funds, optimise growth and capital preservation with minimum risk,” an official source said.

The NBDF committee members were also told in last meeting that some expenses have been incurred from the fund on India International Rice Summit, Raipur as well as for space rental for Gulfood 2026 exhibition in Dubai.

The government has stipulated that the expenditure out of the 70 per cent money collected from contract registration fee shall be incurred on promotional activities as well as salaries of the officials in the Help Desk and management as decided by the NBDF Committee.

The funds will be used for “training farmers in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Organic Production, increasing production and productivity of non-basmati rice, research, development, and extension services, trade delegation visits, promotional programs and buyer-seller meets, and consumer research and studies,” the guidelines said.

Though members of the NBDF committee, comprising representatives of rice industry associations, have concurred with the decision to use in fund in term deposits to build a corpus, some exporters requesting anonymity have said that the fund is too meagre to keep it idle instead of spending in raising export, particularly when globally Indian rice is not getting better rates than some of its competitors.

Published Date: June 11, 2026