The Uttar Pradesh government in India has begun distributing fortified rice to 15.05 crore beneficiaries across the state, including those covered under the National Food Security Act. To achieve this, the government has announced that it will only allot paddy to rice mills in the state that have blenders installed. Fortified rice is richer in nutrition than normal rice as it retains vitamins and micronutrients that are typically removed during milling and processing. Additionally, the rice is blended with Vitamin B-1, Vitamin B-6, Vitamin E, Niacin, Iron, Zinc, Folic Acid, Vitamin B-12 and Vitamin A. With the nutritional benefits highlighted, the distribution of fortified rice is being promoted across the country through the Rice Fortification Scheme of NFSA.
According to the government, 12 crore people have already started accessing the benefits of fortified rice through an annual allocation of 46.10 lakh metric tonnes to 64,365 ration shops in 60 districts covered under the NFSA. The distribution of fortified rice is being extended to the remaining beneficiaries. The Uttar Pradesh government is also planning to provide fortified rice to 3.61 crore ration cardholders through 79,365 ration shops by March 2024. A total of 1917 lakh beneficiaries, including 1823 Anganwadis and 865 ration shops, have already benefited from the 102 rice mills in Chandauli and Sewapuri blocks of Varanasi in the year 2021 under the pilot project.
The state government is also planning to produce fortified rice in 1,718 rice mills. In the third phase, the focus is on ensuring the benefit of fortified rice is delivered smoothly to people across all districts by March 2024. At present, the monthly requirement of fortified rice in the state is 4.95 lakh metric tonnes, while a total of 24.56 lakh metric tonnes of fortified rice is available in the state.
The government is taking steps to ensure production and marketing of fortified rice on a large scale. The procurement of paddy by the Government of India during the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2022-23 in the country is going on smoothly. More than 830 lakh metric tonnes of paddy has been procured for the Central Pool till 19 June 2023 under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) operation, and over 1.22 crore farmers have benefited so far. Rs 1,71,000 crore has been directly transferred to the accounts of farmers.
