Moga millers ‘procuring’ cheap rice from other states

Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, December 28

Even as the Punjab Government has imposed a ban on the procurement of rice by millers from other states, some millers in Moga district are still taking raw rice of poor quality from Uttar Pradesh and other states to mix it with locally produced rice, the milling of which is underway these days.

Investigations by The Tribune revealed that this “business” is carried out through rice brokers in Punjab and UP, who also purchase government rice meant for the Public Distribution System (PDS) from black market and sell it to rice millers in Moga and its adjoining districts.

Arvind Kumar, a rice broker of Rampur, Akbarpur district, UP, confirmed that he had sent a few consignments of “khanda” rice (broken rice) to a few mills at Ajitwal, Nihalsinghwala and Moga at the rate of Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,100 per quintal (including freight charges).

When told that “someone needs at least 10 trucks of rice in grey market”, he gave contact details of another rice broker Babli, also of Akbarpur, saying he would bargain on the rate. Arvind said Babli had also sent many consignments of raw rice to rice millers in Moga and its adjoining districts.

Truck driver Soma of Rana Goods Carrier, who brought a consignment of rice at a mill in Ajitwal on Wednesday night, said he brought the truck through Haryana from the Shambu inter-state barrier. “Two policemen chased me on a motorcycle around 11 pm on Wednesday, but I managed to give them the slip,” he said.

The state government authorities do not allow trucks loaded with raw rice to enter Punjab through the Shambu inter-state barrier. Therefore, most of the trucks pass through the Khanauri inter-state border in Sangrur district where rice brokers pay a fixed amount of “bribe” to policemen on duty, the truck driver revealed. “Normally, we just show the slip of consignment to the cops on duty at Khanauri inter-state barrier and they allow us to pass through during the night time,” Soma said.

Baljinder Singh, a local rice broker in Moga, said he supplied rice to traders/millers who had GST number and this was not an unfair trade practice. “If there is a problem, the government should stop the inter-state trade. Otherwise, I don’t think there is any unfair trade practice involved in this,” he said.

Rice millers are allegedly mixing low-priced rice with FCI stocks and selling the better rice in the open market at higher prices. The entire procurement of paddy in Punjab is sent to private millers for cleaning, shelling and polishing of grains. Millers return the finished product back to the FCI for the central pool.

Moga District Rice Millers Association president Vinod Bansal said he had held a meeting of the rice millers recently and had apprised them not to indulge in the unfair trade practice. “If rice millers are indulging in such unfair trade practices, the government should take action as per law,” he said.