FCI takes U-turn on raw rice purchases, refuses to buy citing irregularities
Hyderabad: In what is being seen as a move blatantly orchestrated by the BJP government at the Centre to create hurdles for Telangana, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) which had promised to procure the entire raw rice stocks supplied by the State government, has now taken a U-turn citing alleged irregularities in stock registers at rice mills besides alleged failure to distribute rice to beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY).
This was communicated to the State government after it had procured, following FCI’s promise, about 47 lakh tonnes of paddy from farmers bearing a loss of around Rs 3,000 crore and had made arrangements to supply the procured raw rice to the Corporation.
In a strong rebuttal to the allegations, Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar termed it as another deliberate attempt by the BJP government to create obstacles for a developing State like Telangana. He pointed out that Telangana and FCI did not have any disputes ever in transactions carried out in the last six decades. “But in the past few months, these problems cropped up which indicates how the Centre was misusing government agencies to meet its political motives,” he said.
Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, the Minister recalled that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had launched distribution of free rice along with Rs 1,500 for two months to families affected during the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. Three months later, the Centre came forward to provide 5 kg rice to about 53 lakh of the total 90.46 lakh ration card holders under PMGKY, for eight months. The State government, however, had provided additional rice of 7 kg for the first three months and 5 kg for the subsequent three months i.e. a total of 10 kg rice for six months at an additional expenditure of Rs 980 crore, the Minister said.
Similarly, the State government continued supply of 5 kg rice in addition to 5 kg rice supplied by the Centre for the second phase from June 2021 to April 2022 at an additional expenditure of Rs 1,134 crore. But the Central government on March 28, decided to extend the scheme for another six months, he said.
“As we were busy in paddy procurement and distribution of rice available with us, we could not distribute the rice supplied by the Centre under PMGKY for May. The distribution will resume this month and we will continue to supply till December 2022, towards which the State government will incur additional expenditure of Rs 436 crore,” he said, adding that the rice distribution will be carried out from June 18 to 26 for this month. The State government, in the process, had incurred additional burden of total Rs 5,216 crore for distribution of rice including stocks supplied to teachers and others during Covid-19.
On irregularities alleged in stocks available during physical verification of rice mills, Kamalakar clarified that the FCI authorities had made contradictory observations. He reminded that the Centre had placed the onus of paddy procurement on the State government and offered to purchase only rice, and the latter had no business during milling as well. He advised the FCI to only check if the stocks were supplied to them as promised.
Further, the Minister stated that the FCI authorities claimed that there were irregularities in 4.53 lakh bags of total 40.63 crore bags carrying 162.53 lakh metric tonnes of rice i.e. 0.7 per cent. “They complained of irregularities in about 40 mills. Later, they conducted physical verification along with the Civil Supplies department and admitted that irregularities were found only in 10 mills. We have already filed criminal cases against three mills, recovered 125 per cent paddy from two mills and will be initiating action against the remaining five mills as well,” he added.
During the fresh round of physical verification, the FCI complained about shortage of rice in 63 mills. The District Collectors have been asked to probe into the complaint and action will be taken against those resorting to such irregularities, he added.
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