JOIN USSome three lakh tonnes of rice and 57,200 tonnes of wheat set aside for people of drought-hit regions in the State, have remained untouched in the storehouses of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for the last two months.
The reserves were accumulated after a far-sighted request by the State to Centre in May, asking for allocation of additional food grains.
Following this, the Centre had issued an order on June 20, allocating the amounts of grain and wheat.
But the food grains have gone undistributed because of a “high price” fixed by the Centre, according to Food and Civil Supplies Minister D N Jeevaraj, adding that Centre had also instructed that the grains be moved out of the FCI within 50 days.
Jeevaraj said that he had asked the Centre to supply food grains at the same rates as grains supplied through the Public Distribution System to people below the poverty line.
Under the distribution system, the FCI supplies rice at Rs 8.30 per kg to the States and wheat at Rs 7.10 per kg.
In this case, however, the FCI fixed a price of Rs 15.37 per kg for ‘A’ category rice, Rs 14.92 per kg for ordinary rice and Rs 11.70 per kg for wheat.