BHAWANIPATNA: Milling capacity of rice mills that will participate in the Kharif paddy procurement in Kalahandi is being verified by the Civil Supply Department following a directive of the district administration. The move comes in the wake of allegations from some quarters that mills are manipulating their milling capacity records without enhancing drying and boiler capacity, to get more paddy stock.
The investigation teams of Civil Supply Department are verifying the capacity of the driers, boilers in the mills besides their milling capacity. Verification started from Tuesday and two teams have been formed, one for Dharamgarh and another for Bhawanipatna sub-division, to check the mills.
District Civil Supply Officer Shiva Prasad Dora said verification of milling capacity of rice mills is on and it will be completed by November 26. The department officials are also verifying storage capacity of tagged rice mills.
Dora said 74 Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies will open 172 paddy purchase centres in the district to procure Kharif paddy and 75 millers have entered into an agreement to lift paddy from the purchase centres and mill rice from the paddy. Although procurement was supposed to begin from November 1, it is yet to start due to the ongoing agitation by millers.