BJD Seeks More Rice Allocation Under NFSA

BHUBANESWAR: While the Odisha unit of BJP held demonstrations across the state demanding resignation of minister Sanjay Das Burma and removal of chit fund inquiry commission head MM Das, the ruling BJD MLAs on Tuesday took out a rally and submitted a memorandum to Governor SC Jamir addressing to President of India to provide adequate rice under National Food Security Act (NFSA).

The BJD MPs also met food minister Ram Vilas Paswan in New Delhi and presented their demand for more allocation of rice instead of wheat to Odisha.

“Odisha is a rice consuming state, and paddy is the main crop of Odisha. But, the centre has been making a large allocation of wheat to Odisha just to please the North India wheat procuring states,” said the memorandum submitted to the Governor.

It said that 24% of Odisha’s population belong to Scheduled Tribes who prefer rice in their daily diet.

Providing wheat under PDS created a problem for them as they could not mill the whole wheat easily and making Rotis was an alien activity for them, it added.

“Government of India have been allocating rice and wheat at the ratio of 78.83 : 21.17 on the ground that this was the ratio of allocation and lifting prior to NFSA implementation. But the reality is that in last three and half years, since April 2012 till October 2015 the ratio of the lifting of rice to wheat has been 85:15 at 70.60 lakh tonnes of rice and 12.41 lakh tonnes of wheat by Odisha,” said the memorandum.