Odisha clears surplus rice as FCI ramps up offtake after storage pause, 18L tonne lifted in 2 month

BHUBANESWAR: Much to the relief of the state government and millers, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has increased the pace of rice offtake from Odisha creating more storage space in district godowns for stocking custom milled rice (CMR).

The CMR delivery to the central pool which stood at 31.63 lakh tonne by the end of August has now gone up to 49.89 lakh tonne as on December 12. FCI had halted lifting CMR from July 30 till first week of October citing storage space constraint and low demand for parboiled rice from major consuming states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. It lifted 18.15 lakh tonne of rice from the state in the last two months.The central government had fixed the rice estimate for Odisha during the kharif marketing season 2024-25 at 50 lakh tonne, which included 40 lakh tonne for kharif crop and 10 lakh tonne for rabi crop before revising the estimate to 58 lakh tonne in October following repeated requests from the state government. The total delivery of rice to the central pool including the state’s consumption under PDS is 49.78 lakh tonne. The remaining 8.22 lakh tonne will be lifted by FCI by end of December, sources said.However, in October, the state government extended the additional rice of 5 kg for three months to all the families covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and State Food Security Scheme (SFSS) in the remaining 19 districts from September to November. As a result, the state effectively disposed of nearly 11 lakh tonne of the surplus rice.

On the milling front, the custom millers have already delivered over 49.78 lakh tonne of rice – 27.89 lakh tonne to the state for PDS delivery and 21.89 lakh tonne to the FCI. The state has a current stock of 3.36 lakh tonne of rice in different districts.