Efforts to solve rice millers' issues through complaint settlement portal in Punjab

29-Oct-2024 12:10 PM

Chandigarh. There is a lot of anger among farmers due to the slow pace of government procurement of paddy and rice in Punjab, while rice millers and shellers are also troubled due to some specific reasons.

Actually, in this state, which contributes the most food grains to the central pool, there is not enough space in the godowns to store the grains safely and rice millers are not ready to stock government paddy.

The matter is also stuck on the average recovery rate of rice from PR 126 variety of paddy. The central government has fixed the recovery rate of rice from paddy at 67 percent, while the millers say that the recovery rate of rice from PR 126 variety of paddy is only 62-63 percent. Special measures are being taken to find out the truth of this.

The Union Minister of Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution launched an online portal yesterday to resolve the problems and complaints of rice millers. Officials claim that after receiving the complaint, it will be resolved within three days.

To make space in the warehouse, arrangements are being made to send 13-14 lakh tonnes of food grains from Punjab to other states every month. This process will continue till March 2025.

From December 2024, rice millers will start supplying custom milled rice (CMR) to the warehouses of Food Corporation of India and the government hopes that by then a lot of space will be freed up in the warehouses for storing rice.

The pace of rice procurement was slow till now because there was a storage crisis. According to official figures, till October 23 this year, only 20.60 lakh tonnes of rice (equivalent to paddy) could be procured in Punjab, which was 36 percent less than the purchase of about 32 lakh tonnes in the same period last year.