Custom milling of 93.5 lakh lakh tonnes of paddy had stopped abruptly at rice mills after two months of uninterrupted operations since June 7 due to the refusal of the Food Corporation of India to lift stocks primarily because the State government has not implemented the sixth phase of Prime Minister’s Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana scheme of free supply of rice to poor due to COVID from April.
The sixth phase was spread over April to September this year but the government drew its quota of free rice from the FCI promptly in April and May and did not supply. It began the distribution only this month with the assurance to extend the same till November to make up for the loss of initial two months. However, the Centre was not convinced not only about free rice but figures about storage of rice at mills, paddy procurement audit and failure of mills to cooperate with physical verification of stocks by the FCI.
As a result of suspension of milling for the last eighteen days, the paddy stocks at mills were exposed to damage due to rain and sprouting of weeds from within gunny sacks.
