Millers flag storage crisis, urge govt to move rice stock out of state

The Rice Millers' Association, Punjab, has urged the Centre to immediately intervene in the state’s emerging storage crisis, warning that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) currently has space for only 22 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of rice against the 105 LMT that will be milled this season.Association president Gian Chand Bhardwaj said Punjab had received 156 LMT of paddy this year, all of which had been handed over to millers for processing. From this, 105 LMT of rice is to be supplied to the FCI.

He said millers had been asked to supply 20 LMT rice with 10 per cent broken content and 85 LMT with 25 per cent broken content by April 30, 2026. Any delay beyond this deadline, he warned, would increase the percentage of broken rice due to the rising temperature in summer.

Bhardwaj stressed that the bigger challenge was the acute shortage of space in godowns in Punjab. To create space, he urged the Centre to run special trains to shift the existing stock to other states or facilitate exports. “It must be completed before April 30, 2026,” he said.

A large number of millers, including Jaipal Goyal (Kapurthala), Namdev Arora, Arvind Zulka (Gurdaspur), Ashwani Kumar, Balwinder Singh Dhuri, Sanjeev Kumar Mansa, Amit Goyal Rishu, Rajiv Sheru, Bunty Dhuri, Anil Dhawan and Pawan Kumar, attended the press meet.