Bhubaneswar: The state government Tuesday asked the Centre for the urgent release of pending subsidy of Rs 6,039 crore to complete the paddy procurement process in the state.
Food supplies and consumer welfare minister Ranendra Pratap Swain Tuesday wrote a letter to this effect to his counterpart at the centre, Piyush Goyal. The state government will get the dues pending against its claims made during 2014-15, 2017-18, 2018-19 and the current year till December 2020.
Swain said the Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation has so far borrowed a staggering `15,000 crore to run the programme due to non-release of subsidy by the centre although it has pending subsidy claims towards provisional and advance subsidy of `6039 crore.
“Since all resources including the sanctioned limits of bank finances have been exhausted, further paddy procurement from farmers may be severely affected. The pending subsidy, therefore, may be released urgently,” Swain said.
Raising another issue on the lifting of the surplus paddy from Odisha, he said the Food Corporation of India has asked the state government to limit the delivery of surplus parboiled rice to the extent of 50 per cent of the last year’s delivery and not to accept any surplus in the form of parboiled rice during the rabi season of the current kharif marketing season 2020-21. Odisha is primarily a parboiled rice consuming state as 24 out of 30 districts consume parboiled rice.