Government’s big decision on nutritious rice procurement, pilot project started in 15 states

new Delhi. The Center has implemented a pilot project to make rice nutritious and to procure its Paddy Crops. In the initial phase, 15 state governments have identified their districts (one district per state). These states include Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh. This project has been approved for three years. For this, the government has passed a budget of Rs 174.6 crore.

In this connection, the Union Food and Consumer Affairs, Railways, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal also held a review meeting. Which emphasized on increasing the distribution of nutritious rice. Food and Public Distribution Department will help in this work. Distribution of such rice is already underway in some other states including Chhattisgarh. The meeting also stressed the use of good quality rice in the Integrated Child Development Scheme / Mid-Day Meal Scheme in the ambitious districts of the country. Due to this, supply chain and other logistic needs were also discussed to make rice nutritious and to promote its distribution plan.

Supply capacity will be increased
Presently, the rice supply of PDS is 350 lakh MT. There is a need to increase the supply capacity of FRK to around 1.3 lakh MT in the country. Also, industries will have to make a continuation of the supply of 3.5 lakh metric tons of FRK for nutritious rice.
At present there are about 28,000 rice mills in the country. They have to use blending machines to improve rice. FCI says that it should tie up with rice mills located in different regions for the necessary investment in this regard.

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