A team from the Centre along with officials from the State government will soon conduct a fair average quality (FAQ) analysis along with a survey to suggest changes in yardstick for natural calamity affected Kharif paddy.
This was informed by State Food Supplies and Co-operation Minister Surya Narayan Patro who said “I had personally met and requested Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to re-consider and amend the FAQ mandatory provision imposed on paddy, especially for areas in Odisha that were affected by cyclone, drought, flood or untimely rains.”
He said the Central government has accepted the State government’s request and will soon dispatch a team for conducting survey in the affected areas as per the notification of the State’s Revenue and Disaster Management Department. “They will check and relax FAQ. The team will comprise Central Supply Corporation officials along with some of our officers from State Revenue and Disaster Management Department. They will conduct field visits and submit a joint report,” Patro informed.
Notably, the State Food, Supplies & Consumer Welfare Secretary had on December 14 written to his Central counterpart requesting for relaxation in uniform specification of paddy in Odisha for Kharif Marketing Season 2017-18. The letter read, “As per the Odisha Gazette notification no 7338 dated 29.11.17 of Revenue & Disaster Management, Government of Odisha, 133 Blocks under 19 districts of Odisha have been affected by the unseasonal cyclonic rain. A team of Quality Control Officers of the FCI and State Government were deputed to assess the quality of paddy in the affected districts.
From the analysis report, it is revealed that the paddy doesn’t conform to FAQ norms as the refractions under “damaged, disclosed, sprouted & weevilled” grains reportedly increased up to 23.5 pc as against the Government of India uniform specification of 5 pc for the KMS 2017-18. It is therefore, requested that Quality Control Officers may kindly be deputed for assessment of quality of paddy and subsequent relaxation in FAQ norms for Odisha at the earliest in order to prevent distress sale of paddy and to help the farmers to avail the benefits of price support operations.”