Strongly opposing the wheat "dumping" on a rice consuming state like Odisha, ruling BJD MLAs today sought President Pranab Mukherjee's intervention to ensure that the rights of poor beneficiaries and tribal people under the National Food Security Act, 2013 are protected.
"We are forced to knock the President's door as the Centre has ignored the state government's demand," said Panchayati Raj minister Arun Kumar Sahoo.
The ruling party MLAs including ministers today walked down to Raj Bhavan in a rally and submitted a memorandum addressed to the President.
Besides the minister of the department concerned and state Chief Secretary, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik also approached the Centre requesting them not to "dump" excess wheat on the people of Odisha, he said.
"Although, the Government of India is insisting for the implementation of NFSA in one hand, on the other hand it is imposing unfair and unjust allocation of food grains to this state. With 24 per cent of the tribal population, the state government may not be able to ensure food security as per the needs of the poor people of Odisha," the memorandum said.
While identifying the beneficiaries under the NFSA, the
state government provided a choice to beneficiaries to select the combination of five kg of food grains basket (five kg rice or four kg rice and one kg wheat... To one kg rice and four to five kg wheat).
All beneficiaries under NFSA have indicated their choice and after collecting the choice of the beneficiaries under priority households (PHH) and that of Antodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) beneficiaries, it was found that the rice wheat ratio was 85.82:14.18 for all NFSA beneficiaries, the memorandum said.
Under AAY, which has been continuing under NFSA, all beneficiaries were being provided 35 kg rice in Odisha prior to NFSA. So it was decided by the state government to provide them 35 kg of rice if they were otherwise eligible under NFSA.
But, the Centre was also making wheat allocation for them, the BJD MLAs said.
Notwithstanding the people's food choice, the Centre has been allocating rice and wheat at the ratio of 78.83:21.17 on the ground, which was the ratio of allocation and lifting prior to the NFSA implementation.
"But the reality is, in the last three-and-half-years since April 2012, the ratio of lifting of rice and wheat has been 85:15 at 70.60 lakh tons of rice and 12.41 lakh tons of wheat by Odisha," they pointed out.
As the people of Odisha prefer rice than wheat, the ruling party demanded that the Centre not dump wheat on the state.
