The government’s central-pool rice stocks continue to surge despite record offloading of grain through open market sale, liberal allocations to states, and for ethanol manufacturing and Bharat rice initiative in the current fiscal. Open mark sales in FY26 have surpassed a record 5.6 million tonne (MT), higher than the FY25 sale of 4.63 MT.

Sources said that the government may offload about 6 to 7 MT of rice this fiscal from its surplus stocks of Food Corporation of India (FCI).

The current central pool stock is over 47 MT, over 3.5 times the buffer of 10.25 MT for October 1.

Officials said the current stock with FCI includes about 10 MT of grain yet to be received from millers.

During April 1 – October 8 (2025-26), FCI supplied 2.46 MT (ethanol), 2.06 MT (state social welfare s

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