Mills creating hurdles in rice paddy procurement

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 PASSCOs 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 PASSCOs 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.
As PASSCO has again invited applications from the rice mills of Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan to lease mills premises to the PASSCO aims to keep commodity to be purchased from growers.
In this regard, the Managing Director of PASSCO in its letter sent to federal Secretary of Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MinFA), Chief Secretaries of Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan provinces, seeking provincial governments help to expedite the paddy-procurement process.
The PASSCO has urged the provincial governments to encourage/direct the owners of maximum rice mills of the provinces to immediately come forward and join PASSCO to expeditiously commence the Public-Private initiative for procuring paddy from growers.
When contacted by The Nation, Secretary of Agriculture Department of Sindh Agha Jan Akhtar also termed rice mills owners as hindrance in smooth purchasing of paddy from growers.
He said that the government does not authorize to force the rice mills owners to lease the mills premises to PASSCO as these come under private sector, so government only forward request to them.
Agriculture Secretary further said that 7 rice mills in Larkana and one in Shikarpur have expressed willingness to lease mills premises to PASSCO for keeping commodity of outgoing Kharif to be purchased from growers.
The growers of Sindh did not receive price of the paddy prescribed by federal government last year as rice mills owners through creating hindrances forced the growers to sale their commodity less than official price, he concluded.