The Centre has said that there is huge increase in procurement of paddy in current Kharif marketing season and the major increase has taken place in Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
According to an official release, the total quantity of paddy procured in terms of rice is over 208 lakh tonnes so far as against 157 lakh tonnes on this date during the previous marketing season.
An additional fund of Rs. 10,000 crores has been provided by the Centre to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in order to ensure that it has enough funds to pay farmers and state government agencies.
The Centre has, in all, released a food subsidy of Rs.87,000 crores to the FCI and an advance of Rs. 20,000 crores during the current financial year, which is an all time record.
As on January 1, there is nearly 238 lakh tonnes of wheat stock and close to 127 lakh tonnes of rice under the central pool.
This excess quantity of rice will help in meeting any contingencies arsing due to monsoon deficit or natural calamities in near future.