Move your paddy share: Punjab CM Mann calls up Shah
By Vibhor Mohan
A day before the rice millers’ meeting with the Centre, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday said he spoke with Union home minister Amit Shah to urge him to address the issues of the millers by moving the paddy belonging to the Centre stocked in the state.
Mann said he appraised Shah over phone about the hiccups in the paddy procurement operations. He said, “Today, I spoke with the Union home minister and asked him to resolve the problems of rice millers and arhtiyas. All their issues are concerned with the Centre. The millers had to pay for transportation charges or their demand to get compensation for driage. The demands pertaining to the state have been fulfilled. I had accompanied the millers to Delhi. Now the millers are going for a meeting in Delhi on Wednesday.”
Mann added, “Punjab makes the biggest contribution to the central pool. This season, 180 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of paddy will be procured. However, 120 LMT foodgrains of the previous seasons are still lying in the state. It belongs to the Centre and should be moved out so that space is created here. They may want to give it for public distribution system or export it. The rice millers have lost confidence. We are standing with the rice shellers, arhtiyas and farmers. The state’s economy depends on the paddy procurement season. I am hopeful that the Centre will address their problems.”
He said, “Paddy procurement is going on and farmers are getting payments. There is a problem of lifting in some districts and it will be taken care of in a couple of days. …We have the wheat season coming up… Festival season is here, and we want farmers to sell their produce and head home.” He added that the Centre must sympathetically consider the genuine demands of millers so that the procurement process can be completed smoothly.
On the other hand, Punjab Rice Industry president Bharat Bhushan Binta said a delegation of the association would meet Union consumer affairs minister Pralhad Joshi. He added that two key demands of the millers — shortage of storage space and low out-turn ratio (OTR) of PR-126 and hybrid varieties of paddy needed to be addressed on priority.“We would request the Centre that central teams should visit the state to examine the post-milling yield of PR-126 and hybrid varieties so that compensation is offered to them. The millers are willing to offer their premises for storing paddy stocks even if they do not sign agreements for milling,” he said.
According to the rice millers, the PR-126 paddy variety comes with an intrinsic defect of broken grains, resulting in lesser rice yield of around 5 kg per quintal. Being a short-duration variety, PR 126 matures in just 125 days and requires less water, making it suitable for water-scarce areas in Punjab. The produce is often ready in as little as 110 days, resulting in a rice production ratio of only 62 to 64 kg, they claim.Meanwhile, dwelling on another issue, the CM said that the Centre should immediately release state’s pending share of rural development fund (RDF). He said Punjab govt has already completed the formalities for it.
This article has been republished from The Times of India