FCI pushes for early milling of paddy in Punjab

Tribune News Service

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, November 3

The depleting foodgrain stocks in the country and the delayed harvesting of paddy in states other than Punjab and Haryana are leading the Food Corporation of India to push for early shelling of paddy.

The Government of India is keen on Punjab starting the rice shelling on November 10. Generally, the rice shelling season starts at the end of November and ends in March. A request in this regard has been made by the FCI to the state government.

However, what is now causing a concern for both the state government and the Centre is the slowing down of paddy procurement. Though the Punjab Government had set a target to procure 185 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of paddy, with the slowing down of procurement for two days now (the daily procurement hovering around 5 LMT), it seems the target could fall short by 20 LMT.

The rice stocks available with the FCI till October this year were 204.67 LMT. Last year, during the corresponding period, the rice stocks available were 253.26 LMT. With the global food crisis continuing and rice prices going up — the increase in price is 8.39 per cent as compared to last year- the government is reportedly trying its best to rationalise distribution of rice to all rice-consuming states.

Sources in the FCI and the state government told The Tribune that they were looking at distributing at least 25 LMT of rice, procured during the ongoing kharif marketing season, along with the existing rice stocks to the recipient states, including Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. “The paddy harvesting in Punjab ends almost a month before the procurement and harvesting in other paddy-growing states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Hence milling of paddy in these states, too, will be late. We need to send rice quickly so that each state has enough stocks. Thus, the milling in Punjab is being done early and we expect the milling season to end early, by February,” said a senior officer, requesting anonymity.

Interestingly, this year in Punjab, the direct paddy procurement by the FCI is almost negligible at 1.67 LMT as compared to 127 LMT of paddy procured in the state (only 1.3 per cent) . Sources in the FCI said they were procuring at the same level as last year.

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