BHUBANESWAR: Around 30 trucks laden with gunny bags purchased by Odisha government for paddy procurement in the upcoming kharif marketing season are stranded across the state as rice millers are refusing to accept the consignment due to storage space constraints.
In a memorandum to principal secretary, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Vir Vikram Yadav, the All Odisha Rice Millers’ Association (AORMA) said they are not obligated to keep the gunny bags as there is no agreement with the department for custom milling of paddy for kharif marketing season (KMS) 2024-25.
“We the rice millers of Odisha do hereby decide not to keep the new gunny bags for procurement of paddy for KMS 2024-25 at millers godown. We have neither executed the agreement for the coming KMS nor any specific guideline for storage of gunny bags and its usages are received from the department,” said the memorandum jointly issued by AORMA president Mahesh Kumar Bansal and general secretary Deepak Ranjan Das.
Citing storage space constraint as the major reason for their refusal to keep the gunny bags, the association said it’s not the responsibility of millers to unload and store the jute bags as it violates the standard operating procedure (SOP) defined by the Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation.
As per the SOP, it is the job of the corporation to supply gunny bags to its procurement agencies like primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS), women self-help groups and pani panchayats for packing paddy. Registered rice millers lift the paddy stocks from the paddy purchase centres (PCCs) for custom milling purpose.
The millers’ body said the operational guidelines issued by the state government for KMS 2023-24 stated that two new and as many old gunny bags are to be used for packing paddy required for one quintal of rice. The old gunny bags will be supplied by millers to PACS in advance while the corporation will supply new gunny bags to PACS in advance.
The paddy procured at PACS will be packed at 37.5 kg per bag. This way, the complain of PCCs of not getting gunny bags in time will be solved and storage of paddy at mill point as per the SOP will also be adhered to, the memorandum added.