The State Government has urged the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to expedite release of payments of the piling bills that has resulted in a financial crunch for the Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation.
At a meeting held in New Delhi on Wednesday, State Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Food, Supplies & Consumer Welfare and Chairman of OSCSC Madhu Sudan Padhi brought the issue to the notice of FCI Chairman & Managing Director C Viswanath. While the OSCSC has delivered about 9.36 lakh MT of custom milled rice (CMR) to the FCI in the kharif marketing season (KMS) of 2012-13, in KMS 2013-14 about 10 lakh MT of CMR would be delivered in the central pool account to the FCl.
The FCI takes more than two months to settle the bills of the OSCSC, and as on date bills worth around Rs 400 crore pertaining to KMSs 2011-12 & 2012-13 are pending. Besides, 2.2 lakh MT of CMR (valued at Rs 550 crore) has already been delivered in KMS 2013-14 to the FCl, said sources. The bill processing procedure in the FCI needs a thorough change as there are redundancies in the present process, urged Padhi. Moreover, the per-day payment limit in high procurement areas like Sambalpur and Titilagarh needs to be enhanced, he argued.
He also raised the issue of transportation charges on paddy and rice in the economic cost sheet issued by the Government of India for the central pool stock for KMSs 2012-13 and 2013-14. Padhi pointed out that the transportation charges on paddy from purchase centres/mandis to mills and from mills to godowns from 0 km onwards would be payable based on the rate fixed by district Collectors of the State or the FCI's rate, whichever is lower.
As a consolidated amount of Rs 34.20 per quintal of paddy is being provided in the costing sheet for DCP stock, the same provision may also be provided in the costing sheet of the central pool as was being done up to KMS 2011-12.
In Odisha, Collectors do not fix any transportation rates as the State Government fixes them after a lot of deliberations. The FCl Odisha region has more or less adopted the State Government's rates but has made a change in the first 10-km range. The FCI does not have any special rate for the first 10-km distance even though the cost of hiring a vehicle is quite high for such a short distance.
Hence, the FCI's rate may be modified for the first 10 km so that the State agencies are encouraged to participate in the procurement operation, Padhi argued. Till date, in the current KMS, the participation of all State agencies in procurement except the OSCSC has been less than 5 per cent, he said. He said the Centre has been requested to the reintroduce transport charges in the costing sheet for paddy and rice for deliveries made to FCI on the central pool account and for modification of FCI's rate for first 10-km range.