Punjab rice millers withdraw agitation against FCI

Kapurthala, Nov 5 (UNI) The Punjab Rice Millers Association today called off their 13-day old agitation following acceptance of their three main demands by the FCI Chairman-cum-Managing Director A K Dubey in their meeting held in Chandigarh yesterday.

The decision was taken in the meeting of state executive o Millers Association which met here today. More than one hundred executive members of the association from different part of Punjab participated in the meeting.

Following withdrawl of their agitation, the millers have decided to supply the custom levy rice to the FCI from tomorrow. Association President Tarsem Lal and Senior Vice President Jaipal Goyal told mediapersons that the FCI had agreed to waive of gunny bag recoveries from the rice millers for the period of 1998 to 2002.

FCI had also consented to acceptance of consignment of levy rice from 20 tonnes to 27 tonnes.

The FCI had also agreed to the millers demand that transportation charges after eight kilometers from the FCI Depot to their private godowns be fixed by the concerned Deputy Commissioners. They said FCI has also allowed them to reuse the gunny bags 'more than once' for packing paddy/rice .

The association has appealed to the FCI to consider their demand on raising the limit of damage grain of rice from three to four percent and discolored grain to five percent as the paddy in the state had been affected by the rains.

The rice millers in the state were on strike since October 24 and were not supplying the levy rice to the FCI due to non acceptance of their demands.

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