To resolve the issue of procurement of parboiled rice under the centre’s pool, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and his cabinet has sought an appointment from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Chief Secretary of Chhattisgarh Amitabh Jain in a letter to the Prime Minister's Office requested to fix the date and time for the meeting of the Chhattisgarh Cabinet with the Prime Minister, the Chattissgrah government statement said on Friday.
The CS letter said CM Baghel and his Council of Ministers want to meet PM Modi to discuss the matters related to paddy procurement.
For this, he has requested the Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office to fix the date for the meeting, the communique said.
The letter said, under the Decentralized Procurement Scheme of the Government of India, an MoU was signed with the Food Department, Government of India that paddy is purchased from farmers on support price in Kharif season.
However, in the current Kharif marketing year 2021-22, as per new instructions of the Union government Food Department will only procure 100% Arwa rice (61.65 lakh metric tonnes) under the central pool in Chhattisgarh state, meanwhile, in the previous years, parboiled (Usna) rice was also considered for the Central pool from the state.
The letter states that the new instructions of the Ministry of Food, Government of India will create livelihood problems before 416 Usna mills operators and thousands of workers associated with them in Chhattisgarh. Thus, to resolve the issue, CM and his cabinet want to meet the PM.
The letter also said there are several farmers which only cultivates paddy from which only parboiled rice could be made, this will also will create a problem for them.
The state government also wants to resolve the issue of shortage of gunny bags essential for procurement of paddy in the state.
