Deadline over, paddy worth Rs 500 cr still not deposited with govt

Though the deadline for milling the pending paddy of 2011 is over, around 4-lakh metric tonne (MT) paddy worth around Rs 500 crore has not been deposited by the millers with the state government, as around 20-lakh MT paddy of 2011 has been lying pending in the rice mills of the state for milling.

Sources in the food and supply department said that millers do not have paddy with them, as they have already sold it in the open market and pocketed the money in connivance with officials, who also received a share.

Around 1,700 millers of the state have to clear the pending lot till December 31. Out of around 3,000 rice shellers in the state, nearly 800 millers have already been blacklisted by the government for being defaulters and not milling even 70 per cent of the rice stored in their mills. Only 500 millers completed their work in time for the last season.

Sources in the government further revealed that paddy worth Rs 500 crore was pending for 2011, and if the record of the past five years was seen, then around Rs 2,000 crore paddy had gone missing from the rice mills, as neither the government nor the rice millers had ever cared for the same.

" When the Congress government had left in 2007, there was paddy worth nearly Rs 170 crore, and now it has increased to Rs 2,000 crore," said a senior official in the department on anonymity.

Rakesh Jain, chief of Punjab Rice Shellers Association, said the millers were to clear the backlog till December 31, and now he was not aware whether the back log was cleared. He added that around 1,700 millers had been issued instructions to clear the backlog of 20 lakh MT paddy by December 31, 2012.

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