Punjab Rice Millers Warn of Indefinite Mill Closure

15-Dec-2025 11:06 AM

Fatehgarh Sahib: Rice millers in Punjab have warned that if the state government does not raise their demands and problems with the central government and get them resolved as soon as possible, they will be forced to shut down their mills indefinitely.

The state government is already aware of the millers' main demands. The millers say that Custom Milled Rice (CMR) should be accepted until the supply of Fortified Rice Kernels (FRK) improves.

This CMR rice is supplied to the Food Corporation of India (FCI), and the corporation should analyze it. In addition, issues related to the non-supply of fortified rice kernels should also be resolved.

The national president of the Federation of All India Rice Millers Association says that the Prime Minister is running a digital campaign to eliminate corruption.

In 2022, automatic grain analyzers were installed at FCI delivery centers to analyze the quality of the rice grains supplied to the corporation. These machines were then installed at the corporation's depots in 2023.

This provided considerable relief to the rice millers. However, the government has now decided to analyze the rice manually instead of using these machines, which will increase the exploitation of millers and allow corrupt officials to act arbitrarily.