Mills creating hurdles in rice paddy procurement

Mills creating hurdles in rice paddy procurement


By: Ramzan Chandio
Published: November 04, 2009
KARACHI - The rice mills owners in country are creating obstacles in smooth procurement of paddy from growers as they have expressed unwillingness to lease mills’ premises to the PASSCO, official sources told The Nation.
The PASSCO, which is a federal organization, has approached the owners of rice mills in the county to get mills’ premises on lease to store the paddy of kharif crop 2009 there, which is to be purchased from the growers.
The federal government has assigned task to PASSCO to procure the rice paddy of over one million tons from the growers directly on prescribed rates announced by Ministry of Food and Agriculture for this outgoing kharif season 2009.
The government has fixed minimum support price of Rs600/40kg for irri-6, above Rs1200/40 for Baspati and other varieties. Though, the PASSCO has started preparations to purchase the commodity from growers, but rice mills owners are creating hindrances in terms of disallowing their mills’ premises to lease PASSCO, sources said.
Keeping in view the problems in smooth purchasing of paddy from growers, the PASSCO has sought the help from provincial governments in this regard, sources in PASSCO said, adding that it is consciously striving to implement the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet/MINFA decision regarding PASSCO’s intervention in procurement of paddy of kharif crop 2009, but the arrangements critically depends on hiring/leasing of the rice mills. The official confirmed that during PASSCO’s initial efforts for leasing of the rice mills in the country, only 2 mills from Sindh have showed their willingness to lease their premises to PASSCO.
However, 94 rice mills from Punjab have expressed willingness to lease their premises to PASSCO, while no rice mills from Baluchistan came forward in this regard.