Rice millers threaten to boycott paddy milling

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, September 25

Facing a lot of problems in storing rice, members of the Rice Millers’ Association has threatened not to mill paddy this season.

The state is expecting 117 lakh metric tonnes of rice after milling of paddy in the ensuing season. The paddy will start arriving at state mandis from October 1 and rice millers will start milling it by mid-November. After milling, the rice is delivered to the Food Corporation of India (FCI).

But as godowns of the FCI and affiliated food agencies in Punjab are now packed to capacity and have space to store only 17 lakh metric tonnes of rice, rice millers are worried about the place to store 100 lakh metric tonnes of rice after milling.

“In the absence of space to store the milled rice, we have no option but to delay the milling process. But for the delay, the Food and Supply Department will impose penalties on us,” said Charanjit Singh and Harpal Singh, rice millers, during a meeting here on Wednesday.

“Until the FCI liquidates the excess grain stock and creates space for the new stock, the procurement and milling of paddy will be hampered in the coming days,” said members of the Rice Millers’ Association.

The FCI, an agency to handle the Central pool stock, has huge grain stocks which far exceed buffer stock norms. A significant gap between the quantum of procurement of grains and the volume of allocation to states under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) has resulted in holding on to more grain stocks than needed. This situation has left no space for the new rice stock.

Tarsem Saini, president, Punjab Rice Millers’ Association, said, “The delivery of milled rice will begin from mid-November and the entire rice (117 lakh metric tonnes) will be delivered by April-end next year.”

Besides space shortage, the millers are opposing the state government for receiving Rs5 lakh as non-refundable security from each miller. “Earlier, the security amount was refundable after the completion of the paddy milling. But this time, the amount has been hiked to Rs10 lakh, including non-refundable Rs5 lakh,” said Laddi Mangewala, a rice miller.

Millers are also unhappy over the remaining payment of Rs1,500 crore of the last year’s paddy milling from the state government. “The last paddy milling season got over on March 31. But the government neither released the several charges and packing material expenses, nor returned the security deposit taken from every rice mill before paddy procurement,” said the millers.

Millers will convene a state-level general house meeting on October 7 in Moga. During the meeting, they will take decision to boycott paddy milling if their demands are not meet, said Saini.