Cong says ‘unreasonable restrictions’ placed on sale of rice under OMSS ‘misfired’ badly

PTI, Jul 11, 2023, 10:58 AM IST

The ”unreasonable restrictions” placed on sale of rice under the Open Market Sale Scheme has ”misfired” badly, the Congress said on Tuesday and slammed the Centre for discontinuing the sale of foodgrains from its pool to state governments as a ”political decision” aimed at ”sabotaging” the Karnataka government’s ‘Anna Bhagya’ scheme.

On June 13, the Centre discontinued the sale of rice and wheat from the buffer stock to state governments under the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) officially due to inflationary pressure and concerns over monsoon.

The Congress has alleged that the move was aimed at scuttling the Karnataka government’s Anna Bhagya scheme.

In a tweet, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the Modi government tries to be clever but ends up becoming too clever by half. ”The unreasonable restrictions placed on sale of rice under the Open Market Sale Scheme(OMSS) at Rs. 34/ kg has misfired badly with the extremely low offtake of rice,” he claimed.

Surplus food stock should indeed be used in the larger interest of 140 crore people but between January and May 2023, it was Karnataka alone that accounted for over 95 per cent of FCI sales to states, he said.

This was when the BJP government was in power in the state, he said.

”On May 13 election results are out. The BJP loses badly. A Congress government comes in. The FCI stops providing rice to states through OMSS on June 13th 2023. It rescinded it’s own sale order of June 12th with the sole intention of sabotaging the Congress’ Anna Bhagya which is unique to Karnataka,” Ramesh alleged.

Meanwhile, let us not forget the continued sale of rice for ethanol at Rs. 20 per kg, he added.

”The Modi government shouldn’t be shooting from the shoulders of other states. More so it shouldn’t be deploying officers to defend what is essentially a pathetic political decision,” the Congress general secretary said.

The Anna Bhagya scheme, one of the five pre-poll guarantees of the Congress, promises 10 kg rice for every BPL (below poverty line) family in the state.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday launched payment of cash in lieu of the additional 5 kg of rice to beneficiaries under the government’s Anna Bhagya scheme. Facing difficulty in procuring large quantities of rice to implement it, the state government decided to pay cash to beneficiaries at the rate of Rs 34 per kg for the additional 5 kg of rice under the free rice scheme, which is applicable to every member of a BPL household and ‘Antyodaya’ households.