-State Govt Must Pay Due Compensation to Flood-Hit Farmers: Gyan Chand Bhardwaj
Patiala, 21 November
The Rice Millers Association Punjab has appealed to the Central Government for urgent intervention to resolve the severe shortage of storage space with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) as the paddy milling season gets underway.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Association President Gyan Chand Bhardwaj, along with other members, stated that Punjab has recorded a paddy production of 156 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) this season, which has been handed over to millers for processing. Out of this, millers are required to deliver 105 LMT of rice to FCI by April 30, 2026 — including 20 LMT of 10% broken rice and 85 LMT of 25% broken rice.
However, FCI currently has covered storage capacity for only 22 LMT in Punjab, creating a massive shortfall of 83 LMT. The millers warned that if deliveries are not completed by April 30, 2026, rising temperatures in summer will further increase the percentage of broken rice, causing additional losses.
They demanded that the Centre immediately arrange special storage facilities and shift old stocks lying in Punjab to other states to make room for the new crop, emphasizing that this must be completed well before the deadline.
Bhardwaj also urged the Punjab Government to conduct special girdawari in flood-affected areas and provide adequate and timely compensation to farmers who have suffered heavy losses due to reduced paddy yields caused by floods this year.
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The millers commended Kapurthala SSP Varun Sharma and his team for maintaining strict border checks along the Haryana-Punjab border and successfully preventing paddy from outside states from entering Punjab.
Present at the press conference were Jaipal Goyal, Namdev Arora (Kaputhala), Arvind Julkan (Gurdaspur), Ashwani Kumar, Balwinder Singh Dhuri, Sanjeev Kumar (Mansa), Amit Goyal Rishu, Rajiv Sheru, Bunty Dhuri, Anil Dhawan, Pawan Kumar, Jaipal Midda, Mahinderpal (Sri Muktsar Sahib), Praveen Jain, Vishal Gupta, Surjeet Singh, Aman Goyal, Manish Jindal, Rinku Moonak, Davinder Binder, and Vikas Kharar, among others.
