In an initiative to facilitate distribution of ‘fortified rice’ to 15.05 crore beneficiaries of the Rice Fortification Scheme, covered under the National Food Security Act across Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government has started allotting paddy exclusively to rice mills in the state that have installed blenders.
“In the second phase of the Central government’s Rice Fortification Scheme, 64,365 ration shops were selected in 60 districts across the state for the distribution of fortified rice to 12 crore beneficiaries,” a government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Fortified rice is richer than normal rice in terms of nutrition because milling and processing removes the fat and micronutrients from regular rice, whereas fortified rice retains all of its properties. The blending process in fortified rice helps preserve and enrich essential micronutrients such as Vitamin B-1, Vitamin B-6, Vitamin E, Niacin, Iron, Zinc, Folic Acid, Vitamin B-12, and Vitamin A. Fortified rice has the potential to address various health-related issues, including anemia.
According to the government statistics, 12 crore people have already started getting benefits of the Rice Fortification Scheme through annual allocation of 46.10 lakh metric tons to 64,365 ration shops in 60 districts under NFSA.
“The Uttar Pradesh government has also taken steps to achieve the target of providing fortified rice to 3.61 crore ration card holders through 79,365 ration shops by March 2024,” the official said. The fortified rice will be produced in 1,718 rice mills.
A total of 1,917 lakh beneficiaries, including 1,823 Anganwadis and 865 ration shops got benefited through 102 rice mills in Chandauli and Sewapuri blocks of Varanasi in 2021, where a pilot project was operated.
In 2021, a pilot project was launched in Chandauli and Sewapuri blocks of Varanasi, where a total of 1,917 lakh beneficiaries, including 1,823 Anganwadis and 865 ration shops, benefited from 102 rice mills. Building on this success, the benefit of fortified rice was extended to 3.96 crore people in the first phase in the state, he said.
At present, the monthly requirement of fortified rice in the state is 4.95 lakh metric tons, while a total of 24.56 lakh metric tons of fortified rice is available in the state.
As per the Centre’s data, the procurement of paddy by the Government of India during the Kharif marketing season 2022-23 in the country is going on smoothly. More than 830 lakh metric tons of paddy has been procured for the Central pool till 19 June 2023, under the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
More than 1.22 crore farmers have been benefited so far from the ongoing paddy procurement operations of KMS 2022-23 and Rs 200 crore has been withdrawn on MSP. Rs 1,71,000 crore has been directly transferred to the accounts of farmers. Production and marketing of fortified rice has been given priority on a large-scale.
Significantly, rice is the staple food of 65 per cent of India’s population and India is also the largest producer and consumer of rice, contributing 22 per cent of world’s total production of rice.