Relax delivery norms, rice millers urge state govt

Nitish Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ambala, January 6

With the elections just three months away, the millers in the state have again started building pressure on the government to relax the norms for custom milling of rice.

Unhappy with the quality of grain, the rice millers have been seeking relaxation in the permissible limits of discoloured, broken and damaged yield while delivering it to the Food Corporation of India (FCI).

Raj Kumar Singla, president, Rice Millers’ Association, Ambala, said: “Untimely rainfall badly affected the quality of the grain. The millers who procure paddy have to return 67-kg per quintal rice to the FCI, in which 3 per cent damaged, 3 per cent discoloured and 25 per cent broken grain is allowed. However, as per the loss this year, there is a need to increase the permissible limits to 5 per cent damaged and discoloured each and 30 per cent broken.”

“Even the yield has been on the lower side this time. So, we demand that the millers should be allowed to return 64-kg per quintal rice instead of 67 kg,” he added.

Singla further said: “The Uttar Pradesh Government has recently relaxed the norms and reduced it to 64-kg per quintal rice and a similar step must be taken by the state. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has written a demi-official letter to the Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution requesting him to relax the norms, but we are yet to hear anything from him.”

Sources, however, said: “Millers have 58.5-lakh million tonnes (MT) of rice belonging to the state procurement agencies, against which they have to deliver 39.2 lakh MT to the government. If the demand of the rice millers is accepted, it will amount to a financial burden of over Rs 580 crore to the state government."

They said there were about 1,100 rice millers in Haryana, of which 200 were big ones. “If their demand is accepted, each of them is set to get an additional benefit between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore. Also, the UP example given by the millers is also irrelevant as the total procurement of paddy there is hardly 3 lakh MT.”