Politically motivated, says Karnataka minister KH Muniyappa after Centre's 'no' to rice demand again

BENGALURU: KH Muniyappa, the Karnataka food and civil supplies minister, alleged on Friday that the Centre had yet again refused to provide more rice to the state and criticised the move as politically motivated.
Muniyappa made these accusations following his meeting with Piyush Goyal, the Union minister for food & public distribution, in New Delhi. He met Goyal with a demand for allocation of more rice for Karnataka from Food Corporation of India's inventory.
Muniyappa, who had returned to Bengaluru from Delhi on Thursday, rushed back to the national capital on Friday to meet Goyal. He had been making frantic efforts to seek an audience with the Union minister and finally got to meet him after CM Siddaramaiah's meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday.
'There may be delay, but will deliver rice scheme'
At the meeting, Shah had reportedly assured Siddaramaiah that he would raise the issue with Goyal and arrange a meeting between the two sides. "I asked him [Goyal] why was he unable to provide rice when there was enough stock with FCI. The Centre requires 135 lakh tonnes to meet the national demand, whereas they have a stock of 262 lakh tonnes," Muniyappa said.
"It is clear that politics is being played over the issue," he alleged, adding that despite receiving repeated requests, the minister did not agree to his demand.
"We have announced the Anna Bhagya scheme [additional 5kg of rice monthly for each member of BPL families in Karnataka] and we will deliver it. We are in touch with central agencies and a decision on this will be taken by the end of this week. There may be a delay, but we will implement it," Muniyappa added.
He also said in case the state government fails to procure rice from any other source, it will call a tender for procurement.
About 2.2 lakh tonnes of additional quantity of the cereal is required per month for implementation of Anna Bhagya scheme, estimated to cost the state exchequer around Rs 10,000 crore annually.
The FCI, which had initially agreed to supply the additional quantity, later rescinded its decision, forcing Karnataka to explore other sources, which turned out to be more expensive than FCI rice, priced at Rs 36.6 a kg.