Last Updated: July 10, 2023, 5:36 PM IST
The auctions are only for private players, and state government cannot take part in them. (Shutterstock)
The e-auction was organised to sell rice across 19 states and it came after the FCI had cancelled its earlier order to provide the grain to Karnataka.
As Centre stopped the sale of rice to Karnataka and other states under the Open Market Sale Scheme – Domestic (OMSS-D), and asked the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to auction the grain, the latter is struggling to find buyers.
In a an e-auction on July 5, the FCI did not see many buyers and only received bids for 170 metric tonnes despite having 3.86 lakh metric tonnes of rice as its offering, the Indian Express reported.
These e-auctions are only for private players, and state government cannot take part in them.
The auction was organised to sell rice across 19 states, that included a 1.5 lakh metric tonnes for Punjab, 49,000 for Tamil Nadu, and 33,000 for Karnataka, according to IE.
Out of 19 states, the FCI only got bids from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and the North East Frontier Region.
Sixteen states including — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Nagaland, Kerala, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan — saw no sales of the staple grain, IE said.
Karnataka and the FCI
This comes after, the Karnataka government had last month asked for 2.28 lakh metric tones of rice from FCI. This was to provide for its promised 10kg food grains to all Below Poverty Line (BPL) families under its Anna Bhagya Scheme.
A day after this request on June 13, the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, directed FCI against selling grains to state governments.
After this, FCI who had earlier agreed to supply 2,22 lakh metric tonnes to the southern state, cancelled its order.
FCI had said that it was directed by the Centre to start e-auctioning wheat and rice in order to check inflation trends as part of its understanding of the market.
Congress vs BJP with rice in between
The FCI backing down on its delivery has become a flagpoint between the Congress party and the BJP.
Congress on Monday lashed out at the Centre, and said it was playing “petty and vindictive” politics on the issue of food security and was trying to sabotage the state government’s promise to provide free rice to the poor.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh asserted that the Congress Government in Karnataka will not be shaken in its resolve to implement its guarantee.
Therefore for the time being, it is launching a scheme today that will transfer Rs. 170 every month to each of the 4.42 crore persons in the state covered by ration cards, he said in a statement.
Ramesh also said that this this e-auction has “flopped miserably” and “in any case, it is clear that the Modi Government has greater faith in private traders to control inflation than in state governments and the public distribution system.”
