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Relief to Haryana farmers as rice millers join procurement
A strong lobby of the rice millers of Haryana forced the government to bow to their demands, including withdrawal of FIRs registered against some rice millers for contravening the CMR policy by allegedly bringing in rice from other states
A strong lobby of the rice millers of Haryana forced the government to bow to their demands, including withdrawal of FIRs registered against some rice millers for contravening the CMR policy by allegedly bringing in rice from other states.
The deadlock ended as the government reportedly agreed to their demands during a meeting between the members of the rice millers’ association and Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala late on Tuesday.
Though the government is yet to make any announcement in this regard, a statement jointly circulated to the rice millers’ association president Hansraj Singla, chairman Jewel Singh and vice-president Vinod Goel, to members of the Haryana Rice Millers’ Association has confirmed the development.
On their request, the rice millers have also joined the procurement operations from Wednesday.
They said the meeting took place as the residence of the Deputy CM, who also holds the portfolio of food, supplies and consumer affairs department, and has agreed to their demands including reducing bank guarantee on paddy provided to rice millers under the CMR policy to 1% owners of rice mills and 2.5% for rice millers who have taken the mills on lease from the proposed 5%.
Cases were registered against rice millers, who were booked for allegedly bringing rice from other states in 2019 and 2020.
While there were no specific details of the number of cases, people associated with the association said cases were registered against rice millers in Karnal, Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts following recovery of rice meant for the public distribution system of other states. Only those rice millers will be given the benefit who have returned the entire rice to the government.
They clarified that cases registered against the defaulter rice millers for not returning the rice will not be withdrawn. The government has also agreed to open procurement for farmers of other states within the next seven day, they said.
Haryana Rice Millers’ Association vice-president Vinod Goel said, “The government has accepted our demands and have asked all rice millers to join procurement without any further delay and inconvenience to the farmers.”
The move has come as a big relief for thousands of farmers in state as procurement gained momentum on Wednesday and most of the paddy lying in mandis for the past couple of days was procured and lifting will also start by Wednesday evening.
BJP’s Thanesar MLA Subhash Sudha also issued a statement stating that talks between the government and rice millers remained positive and the rice millers have decided to start procurement.
Officials of the Haryana Agriculture Marketing Board said the government has also accepted a demand of the farmers and raised the per acre cap for procurement up to 30.8 quintal from 25 quintal.
Even as procurement had started from October 3, rice millers were not cooperating due to new norms introduced by the government in the CMR policy, and without rice millers, the government agency was unable to start lifting of procured paddy.
Bank guarantee clause for Haryana millers amended
The Haryana government has decided to amend the bank guarantee clause in the milling policy for the ongoing Kharif season. An official spokesperson said following a review an additional security amount of 2.5% of the value of the paddy allotted will be obtained from the miller in the form of bank guarantee.
However, for a rice miller who is an unencumbered owner of a rice mill and land underneath and has delivered his entire custom milled rice by May 31, the additional security amount will be 1% of the value of the paddy allotted.
