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The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Friday highlighted in the Parliament about the alleged non-procurement of surplus parboiled rice by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from Odisha and urged the Centre to look into the matter.
Raking up the issue during the Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha today, BJD MPs Prasanna Acharya, Amar Patnaik, Sasmit Patra and Prashanta Nanda demanded that the Centre should lift surplus parboiled rice from Odisha which it has stopped arbitrarily.
“The FCI has refused to receive any parboiled rice in the current year 2021-22. Target has been issued to lift only 5 lakh MT of forfeited parboiled rice and 2 lakh MT of raw rice. As a result, Odisha has been left with 15 lakh MT of surplus rice,” Acharya told the Upper House.
“So what should we do with that rice. Should we throw them into the Bay of Bengal,” Acharya questioned.
The BJD MPs expressed apprehension that non-lifting of surplus par-boiled rice from Odisha would severely affect the farmers.
“I request the concerned minister to kindly consider and ask the Food Corporation of India to lift all the surplus parboiled rice from Odisha,” the parliamentarian added.
He also urged the Centre to release the outstanding subsidy amount of food procurement to the State as early as possible.
However, the BJP strongly criticised the BJD alleging that the regional party’s MPs are playing politics.
“When there is growing resentment among the farmers towards the ruling Biju Janata Dal, its party MPs are passing the buck to others and doing politics over raw and parboiled rice as it did in the past," said Odisha BJP Krushak Morcha president Pradip Purohit while addressing a presser.
"The BJD must put aside such cheap politics. The foremost issue is procurement of paddy in the State and to ensure that, farmers do not face Katni Chatni, the government must make that provision first," Purohit added.
