Grade A rice to be supplied in PDS: AP Govt

Amaravati: Government would not give superfine quality but will provide Common Variety or Grade A or fine quality. The Civil Supplies Commissioner Kona Sasidhar stated that "We never said that government would give superfine quality rice. But we committed to providing a common variety of Grade A rice".

Addressing at a press conference at Secretariat on Wednesday, the Minister for Civil Supplies Kodali Srivenkateswara Rao (Nani) said that due to various technical reasons government has decided to give the fine variety of rice from April 2020. Kona Sasidhar and A Surya Kumari, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, AP Civil Supplies Corporation Ltd also participated in the press conference along with the minister.

Minister announced that it will distribute the Swarna variety or its equal variety of rice in the Public Distribution System. Further, it has explained the fine rice distribution to the entire state will commence in the month of April 2020. At the same time, the pilot project of supplying Swara variety rice to be commenced in September 2019.

The minister explained that they will improve the quality of supply and introduce door delivery system, in this new initiative. At present, the state government has been providing rice based on guidelines prescribed by the Government of India for supplying PDF rice. The food grains quality parameters including that it could contain 25 per cent of broken, 3 per cent discoloured, 3 per cent Chaki. Now, the state government has decided to reduce the broken rice to 15 per cent. The discoloured and Chaki quantity would be reduced to less than 1.5 per cent. Thereby the quality of the rice would be assured, informed the Minister.

In addition to the quality improvement, the government is committed to providing the varieties of which the public like to consume. Some of the present supplying varieties like 1001 and 1010 are sticky in nature after cooking. Hence the government will discourage these two varieties for PDS, but they are useful for exports. These two varieties are disliked by our public, explained Sasidhar.

The minister said that since the procurement season completed for the ongoing agriculture year, the government could only purchase the Swarna variety for the entire state after completing this Kharif.

Procurement of the Swarna varieties would take much time. It will available in the market only in the month of November. After purchasing the product, we have to wait for three months. Then only they would be consumable. In addition to that, the government, for the first time has decided to deliver the packaged rice to the doorstep. For packaging also, it will take time. Considering all these practical problems, the government has decided to roll out the full scheme in the month of April 2020, the Minister explained.

Meanwhile, the government would provide sortex rice in the pilot programme in Srikakulam. Civil Supplies department identified about 1 lakh Metric Tonnes of Swarna variety in its godowns, out of the total 11 lakh to 12 lakh metric tonnes of available rice. This variety would be distributed to the public in Srikakulam.

From the next procurement onwards, the government will segregate each variety of rice and process them separately. They would be stored separately, unlike the present practice. At present, almost 15 to 20 varieties of rice have mixed and being supplied.

Government has been bringing a separate mobile application for the benefit of the consumers. The White Cardholders could track the commodities through the App, like when it would reach to their home and other details.

Village Volunteers have been provided with the additional benefit of Rs 500, the minister informed. This would be used for delivering the products to the houses of beneficiaries.