Ensure millers get paddy in vicinity, Majha officials told

The Food and Civil Supplies Department has ordered its officials in Punjab’s Majha districts to ensure that rice mills get the required paddy for shelling in their vicinity.

The government on Sunday also stopped issuing “release orders” for rice millers in other parts of the state, barring them from bringing paddy from Majha districts.

The directions issued to district and food supplies controllers say they will have to first provide the required paddy to the millers in the vicinity before deciding on issuing “release orders” for paddy shelling to mills located in other districts.

Not enough stock

The move comes as hundreds of rice mills are struggling to buy the required paddy to keep their operations profitable in the wake of recent floods that devastated standing crop on nearly 5 lakh acres, largely in Majha areas.

Nestled between the Beas and Ravi, the region has districts like Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Pathankot.

The region has 22 per cent of total rice shelling units in Punjab, with the rest located in Malwa, where rice millers used to get paddy from Majha and Doaba regions.

So far, 90.12 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of paddy has arrived in state mandis, of which 87.18 LMT has been procured. This year, more than a month after paddy procurement started, only 2.63 LMT of paddy has arrived in Amritsar and 5.26 LMT in Gurdaspur.

Generally, around this time of the year when the procurement peaks, over 6 LMT of crop arrives in state grain markets daily. All paddy that arrived in Amritsar has been procured by state agencies, of which 87 per cent already lifted. In Gurdaspur, 98 per cent of paddy has been procured, of which 77 per cent lifted.

As a result, there is very little unlifted grain that could be given to rice mills outside these districts for milling. This has created panic among rice millers, who feel they will not have enough paddy to process, resulting in losses.

Lower procurement target

Figures available with The Tribune show that 66.24 LMT of paddy had been lifted in the state till this evening, leaving only 20.94 LMT that is yet to be lifted.

Earlier, the government had lowered its paddy procurement target by 10 LMT to 165 LMT because of the fall in yield. Bharat Bhushan Binta, president of the Punjab Rice Industry Association, said there were 5,520 rice shelling units in Punjab.

“Around 100 units will be severely hit due to the fall in paddy production. These include those millers who had set up new units and increased their shelling capacities. Seeing the brisk business in the past few years, these units had expanded capacity,” Binta added.