Rice millers of Telangana, who are part of the exercise of custom milling of paddy to supply rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI), have requested the Centre to allow supply of boiled rice this Rabi season keeping in view the welfare of farmers.
At a meeting with Minister for Civil Supplies G. Kamalakar and authorities of the State Civil Supplies Corporation here on Thursday, representatives of the rice millers expressed concern over the Centre’s decision not to accept parboiled rice in Rabi and it was causing loss to them with forced supply of raw rice. They said they were not hopeful of giving even half the quantity of raw rice target given for Rabi.
The Minister, on the other hand, asked the millers to cooperate with the State Government and supply custom milled rice before the deadline. He assured them that the State Government would take a mutually agreeable decision on the broken rice percentage in the Rabi CMR.
Asking the millers not to cause problems to farmers under any circumstances and made it clear that the government would not allow reduction of paddy weight having fair average quality and also unload paddy brought to mills without any delay. He stated that broken rice percentage in the Rabi CMR would be finalised after taking the interim report of an expert committee on it based on paddy varieties to the Chief Minister’s notice.
Representatives of millers appealed to the Centre to rethink over its decision against accepting parboiled rice in Rabi as the milling industry was facing serious problems due to it. They explained that paddy grain would be broken during its formation stage itself in the Rabi season due to high temperatures and the Centre had taken the decision against parboiled rice without considering the fact.
They also expressed concern over their portrayal as enemies of farmers although they were playing a key role in taking the paddy produced by farmers as finished product to consumers. They said they were not reducing weight of paddy with fair average quality and noted that repeated untimely rains this season was making paddy discoloured and out-turn as raw rice would not be even 50%.
Commissioner of Civil Supplies V. Anil Kumar, General Manager of TSCS Srinivas Rao, president of the rice millers association Gampa Nagender, general secretary A. Sudhakar Rao, working preisdent B. Prabhakar Rao, treasurer Chandrapal and district president of the association participated in the meeting.
