CM meets Piyush Goyal Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel met Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal and reiterated his demand of increasing the permitted amount of 24 lakh MT rice to be procured under the central pool in FCI to 40 lakh MT for the Kharif marketing year 2020-21. He also requested the Union Minister to reimburse pending food subsidies for the year 2019-20 and 2020-21 amounting to Rs 5214.97 crore. The Union Minister assured the Chief Minister of reimbursing food subsidies worth Rs 4832 crore. Agriculture Minister Ravindra Choubey and Food Minister Amarjeet Bhagat also accompanied the Chief Minister during the meeting. The Chief Minister also said that in the interest of farmers of Chhattisgarh the Centre should give permission for deposit of 40 lakh MT rice in the Food Corporation of India at the earliest as 92 lakh MT paddy have been procured from 20.53 lakh farmers under MSP in Chhattisgarh during KMY 2020-21 as on 31 January 2021 under the decentralised procurement scheme. Baghel emphasised that in the meeting of the Food Secretaries of the Government of India for the KMY 2020-21 in-principle consent was given for taking 60 lakh MT rice to the central pool for Chhattisgarh due to which it is possible to resolve about 89 lakh MT of paddy currently acquired. He maintained that the Food department has been allowed by the Government of India to take only 24 lakh MT of rice (16 lakh MT usna and 8 lakh MT arva) under the central pool in the Food Corporation of India in the Kharif year 2020-21. The states PDS will require 20 lakh MT rice and in addition to this the stock of 3 lakh MT rice will be kept by the Civil Supplies Corporation. In this way it will be possible to dispose of 70.50 lakh MT paddy which is being acquired. Also present were Secretary to Chief Minister Siddhartha Komal Singh Pardeshi and Secretary (Food) Dr Kamalpreet Singh.

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