FCI asked to provide adequate storage space in godowns  

Telangana’s Commissioner of Civil Supplies C.V. Anand has requested Food Corporation of India (FCI) to provide adequate storage space in the godowns in accordance with the demand.

Anand said rice millers were ready to surrender the Custom Milling Rice (CMR). However, the FCI is not providing required storage space in district godowns. In this Rabi season Civil Supplies Department purchased 37.15 Lakh Metric Tons of paddy from farmers and handed over to the rice millers for milling. For this millers should surrender 26 LMTs rice to the government by August 31st. Till now 8.76 LMTs Boiled, 0.44 LMTs Raw Rice is surrendered to FCI.

The Commissioner held joint meeting with FCI representatives and Rice millers at Civil Supplies Bhavan on Wednesday to discuss the problems pertaining lack of godowns, and delay in submission of rice to FCI. During the meeting rice millers took to the notice of Commissioner that, they are ready to surrender the rice, but FCI is not providing required enough space to store it. They were worried by this delay, as the rice is stocked in lorry for days laying outside FCI godowns and getting wet due to rains. They requested Commissioner to postpone the surrender date to September 30th, as the FCI is delaying in providing storage space.

Anand requested FCI officials to assign needed storage space to the millers. The storage complaints are coming mainly from Peddapalli, Jagityal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Nalgonda districts. He appealed to the FCI to take steps to solve the storage issue. If storage space is provided according to the demand the millers will surrender rice quickly, if not so, they will delay in surrendering rice to government for which Civil Supplies Department will face financial loss if there is delay in CMR submission before due date i.e. August 31st.

The Commissioner has requested the FCI to take the issue seriously and take necessary arrangements to support the state government. For the first time in Telangana history Civil Supplies Department has purchased paddy from farmers without troubling them on Minimum Support Price (MSP). But due to FCI attitude, Civil Supplies department is facing problems. Due to lack of storage space in FCI godowns milling rice is still laying at the rice millers, FCI should provide space accordingly to the demand.

FCI DGM Prem Singh, Ratna Prasad, Bipin Chakravarthy, FCI Area Managers and Rice Millers attended the meeting. (INN)