BHUBANESWAR: The Centre on Wednesday relaxed the quality norms for procurement of paddy under minimum support price mechanism in 15 districts of the State where the crops were affected due to unseasonal rains. Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan informed the ministry’s decision to relax the FAQ (fair average quality) norms to Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“The department has decided to give relaxation in the FAQ norms for the purpose of procurement of paddy in 15 districts of Odisha to facilitate farmers affected by the unexpected non-seasonal rain,” Paswan informed Pradhan in a letter. The decision to relax FAQ norms came on the request of Pradhan, who had written to Paswan on January 30. Pradhan also discussed the issue with Paswan after receiving several complaints from farmers during his visit to different areas of the State.
A team of officers of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) had visited and assessed the paddy quality in the affected districts. The FCI team reported that the harvested paddy does not meet the FAQ standard.
On the other hand, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister S N Patro said he has not received any letter from the Centre regarding relaxation of FAQ norms of paddy.
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