FCI’s proposed curbs likely to hit rice mills in Telangana hard

HYDERABAD: The Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) plans to procure only fine rice is set to impact the livelihoods of about 10 lakh people in Telangana in the coming season. Not just this, nearly 1,000 rice mills (handling parboiled rice) are staring at a closure due to the curbs — which are likely to come into effect from the next season —on rice procurement by the FCI.
After Telangana came into being, the government had aggressively encouraged paddy cultivation, spawning growth in the number of rice mills across the state.

According to rice millers, they will be left with no choice but to shut down their units. “Each rice mill directly employs 200 people. There are about two lakh workers employed across all rice mills in the state. As indirect employment in transport and other linkages in rice production, another eight lakh work in various mills,” said Gampa Nagender, president of the Telangana State Rice Millers Association.
Lives of all these people are in jeopardy,” said Gampa Nagender. Stating that the rice mills will continue to operate this season since procurement promise had already been given, Nagender, however, expressed concern over the future of several millers.
Currently, the state has over 3,000 rice mills, with approximately 1,000 of them handling only coarse rice. While Telangana cultivates almost 1.6 crore tonnes of paddy in kharif and rabi seasons, 60 per cent of this is parboiled rice (which is partially boiled in the husk). But, the FCI recently said it will purchase only 60 lakh tonnes of fine variety rice, thereby dashing the hopes of mills and workers who deal with parboiled rice.
After 2014, paddy cultivation had gone up by 50 per cent in the state and 250 new rice mills had come up. According to industry sources, to set up a rice mill an investment of Rs 15 crore is needed. “With a daily operating cost of Rs 1 lakh, most of which goes towards wages to workers, it’s never easy to run a rice mill,” a mill owner in Miryalaguda said.
During a recent review meeting chaired by CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, officials said that the future of the rice mills will be in jeopardy if the FCI goes back on rice procurement. The state government pursued the matter with the Union government after the FCI said it will procure only limited quantities of rice.
“We are pursuing the matter with the central government. Hopefully, some solution can be found,” Mareddy Srinivas Reddy, chairman of Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation, said.