Hyderabad: The central govt has written to several states, including Telangana, seeking their opinion on supplying custom milled rice (CMR) to Food Corporation of India with a maximum of 10% broken rice.At present, states have been supplying CMR to FCI with a broken rice percentage of up to 25%. Sources said supplying CMR with 10% broken rice was possible, but the govt would have to compensate rice millers for reducing the broken rice percentage.
“When rice with almost zero per cent broken rice is available in the open market, of course at a higher price, supplying CMR with a maximum of 10% broken rice is not at all a difficult task. FCI wants to auction the rice in the open market, after fulfilling its obligation of distributing it to the states for the public distribution system through fair price shops. The demand for rice with 25% broken rice is less,” an official said.The state govt is expected to hold talks with rice millers to ensure that CMR supplied to FCI contains less than 10% broken rice. Officials said the state govt has procured over 71 lakh metric tonne (LMT) of kharif paddy till date, the highest quantity so far in Telangana.Of this, the Centre has placed an indent for 54 lakh LMT to be supplied to FCI. The total MSP value of the procured paddy in Telangana is 16,912 crore. Of the total quantity, over 32 LMT is coarse variety paddy and another 39 LMT fine grade paddy. All procured paddy has been shifted to mills for processing.“This time the farmers cultivated fine variety paddy in more acres than the coarse variety because the govt is giving a 500 bonus per quintal of fine variety paddy,” a senior official in the civil supplies department said.Officials said that of the total MSP value of the procured paddy amounting to over 16,912 crore, the govt has paid 16,602 crore to farmers, recording a 98% payment rate. They added that bonus payments totalling 1,425 crore have also been provided.
