Space crunch for storing rice, govt delegation to visit Delhi

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 27

With state granaries filled to capacity with rice from previous years, a delegation of the Punjab Government led by Food and Supply Minister Lalchand Kataruchak will rush to Delhi to seek the Union Government’s help in liquidating the stocks.

Official sources told The Tribune that millers in the state had refused to participate in rice shelling for the upcoming paddy season (to begin in October), saying they would not go in for milling till there was enough space to store the paddy. Major unions of rice millers today boycotted the meeting called by the Food and Supply Department to discuss the Rice Milling Policy for 2024-25.

Sensing they have a major problem at hand if the millers refuse to relent, the state government delegation will rush to Delhi to meet Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prahlad Joshi to request him to urgently send the rice stock from previous years to recipient states. The meetings in Delhi are scheduled this week.

Sources say the state government delegation will also take up the issue of value cut of 0.5 per cent as driage charges, imposed by the Centre in the provisional cost sheet. This has been reduced from 1 per cent of the MSP to 0.5 per cent.

Information gathered by The Tribune from the Food Corporation of India shows that the space to store 124 lakh metric tonne (LMT) rice out of total capacity to accommodate 125 LMT is already exhausted. Another 2.5 LMT rice is still lying with rice mills and has not been accepted so far for want of storage space.

Rice millers have been forced to send the shelled rice to far-off locations, including in neighbouring states, incurring additional expenditure out of their own packet. This year, 122 LMT rice is expected to be shelled and it will also have to be stored. But FCI officials said they did not have space for storing next year’s rice. “We will be able to move 10 LMT rice by October, when the milling season starts,” said the FCI Punjab’s Regional General Manager.

Millers say the delay in accepting rice by the FCI has led to moisture loss in the paddy, below the permissible limit of 14 per cent, and they have to bear the loss. The state government has urged the Centre to accept such rice by imposing some value cut.