CANACONA
Consumers in Canacona became uneasy yet again after receiving rice from Fair Price Shops (FPS) in the taluka.
While consumers feared ‘plastic-rice’ had been distributed to them, FPSs flatly denied the claim and insists that ‘Fortified Rice Mixed Rice’ is being issued to ration card holders as per the quota received since May.
“We have even put up a signboard clearly mentioning that rice bags are suitably added with Fortified Rice. A 50-kg rice has fortified rice in the proportion of 49:01 (1 kg of Fortified Rice),” informed a Fair Price Shop owner at Agonda.
“The fortified rice is believed to contain Vitamin B12, Iron, Folic Acid and is healthy and very suitable to defeat Anaemia in children and women.”
“Not all rice is bad or plastic, but when cook the rice, some of the rice looks different and floats in the water,” informed a woman.
Soon, the word spread, and similar concerns were raised by others. A group of women then went to the Fair Price Shop, only to be informed that there had been no mixture of plastic rice, but it that the government had provided the rice quota mixed with fortified rice.
The women were in no mood to listen, despite being shown a government-issued display on the board by the FPS owner to justify his explanation.
Incidentally, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN), beginning for the fourth week of May, fortified rice (containing prescribed micronutrients of Iron, Folic Acid, Vitamin B12) is being distributed through ration shops in 439 districts and other welfare schemes to address the problem of anaemia in children and women.
According to reports, government promoted Fortified Rice, which is also part of diet in developed countries, is considered important as 67 per cent of children (6-59 months), 57 per cent women (15-49 years) and 25 per cent men (15-49 years) suffer from anaemia, as per the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
Rice was chosen as 65 per cent of the country’s population consumes rice as their staple food.
