The Telangana State Rice Millers Association has blamed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for most of their problems including piling up of custom milled rice and paddy stocks with them.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, president of the association G. Nagendra along with other office-bearers including several district presidents of the association said there were about 3,000 rice mills in the State and it was quite common to have defaulters here and there. However, branding all millers as defaulters was uncalled for and unfortunate.
Stating that the milling industry was facing several problems, Mr. Nagendra said they had been demanding compensation in lieu of excess percentage of broken grain in the milled rice, over and above the prescribed limit, but there was no response either from the FCI or from the State Government. The State Government was suggesting that they represent their problems to FCI but they were unable to do so as there was no contact point.
The association office-bearers stated that about ₹1,400 crore was due to the millers from the FCI and State Government. The FCI was supposed to lift 75 lakh tonnes of custom-milled rice but there was no response yet and they had no storage space for paddy this kharif season.
On the problem of broken grain in milled rice, they said their percentage would go up to 50% for the paddy produced in the rabi season but the FCI was not considering it. On the excess paddy issue, the association functionaries said they would not require it provided quality paddy was given to them. However, rain-soaked paddy (paddy with excess moisture content) also affected the rice out-turn as they were getting only 60 kg of quality rice against the specified 67 kg after milling 100 kg paddy.
The millers also requested the FCI to show storage space for keeping custom-milled rice till it was lifted by the agency as it was taking more than a week to unload the rice sent by millers at FCI stock points/godowns. Stating that they already had 110 lakh tonnes of paddy stocks with them, they sought to know where to store the paddy that would arrive this kharif season.
