FCI’s special train to carry rice

Surinder Bhardwaj

Fatehgarh Sahib, April 12

After the publication of news item in The Tribune regarding protest by the Rice Millers Association against the area manager of the FCI alleging he demanded bribe for providing special rail wagons for the movement of rice to other states, the FCI management immediately arranged a special train for rice millers at Sirhind to transport the stored rice to other states.

Tarsem Saini, national president of the association, said today a special train arrived at the Sirhind station for lifting the stored rice and the FCI management had assured that two more special trains had been earmarked for Sirhind to lift rice from godowns.

Saini said as per the agreement with the state government, they were supposed to deliver custom milling rice by April 30 and almost a majority of the millers had completed custom milling, but there was no space to store as godowns were full with rice. 

He demanded that at least five special trains should be allotted to Sirhind then only they would be able to store the custom milling rice, otherwise they would have to pay penalty and suffer losses.

Meanwhile, Nakesh Jindal, press secretary of the association, has urged the state government to release Rs 5 lakh security of each 3,700 rice millers in the state, who have completed the custom milling as per the contract. 

He said millers had to wait for months and to make rounds of the office of the Director, Food & Civil Supplies, to get it released.