Huge drop in sale of government rice under OMSS

10-Sep-2025 04:35 PM

New Delhi. In view of the arrival of new consignments of paddy-rice from next month, the interest of traders in purchasing government rice has decreased. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is regularly conducting weekly auction sales of rice from its stock under the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) for the financial year 2025-26.

Adequate stock of rice is available in the domestic market at cheap prices and new paddy-rice will also start arriving from October, so the sale of government rice is going to be affected.

Last week, FCI had offered to sell 1.28 lakh tonnes of rice under OMSS, but out of this only 15 thousand tonnes could be sold. The corporation was expecting to sell at least 25-26 thousand tonnes of rice but the interest of buyers decreased.

A new phase of rice sales under OMSS has started from the first week of August 2025 and after that this was the first occasion when the sale of rice in a single auction fell by about 10 thousand tonnes.

This time the revised reserve price of OMSS rice has changed somewhat. It is noteworthy that the Food Corporation is organizing auction sales twice a week to reduce the huge available stock of rice.

According to official data, if this trend of weak sales continues further, then a change in the offer strategy can be considered. Under this, either the quantity of the offer can be reduced or the allocation of rice can be changed at the regional level.

There is a huge stock of rice in the central pool and government procurement of paddy is going to start from October. This stock of paddy will be allocated to rice millers for custom milling and rice millers will supply Custom Mill Rice (CMR) to the Food Corporation in return. As a result, the stock of rice in the central pool will increase regularly.