HAFED's new paddy milling system pays rich dividends

Chandigarh, Sept 6 (UNI) Haryana Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation's (HAFED) new paddy milling system is paying rich dividends.

The HAFED is likely to get Rs 60 lakh more as milling charges during the current kharif marketing season as compared to last kharif season from the private rice mills with whose association HAFED is running its rice mills, a HAFED spokesman said.

He said 12 rice mills of Hafed, which were being run on private-public partnership mode were located at Radaur, Ladwa, Pehowa, Dhand, Kalayat, Jakhal, Ratia, Ding, Kalanwali, Rania, Pillukhera and Samalkha.

With a view to further streamlining its rice milling activity and creating healthy competition and transparency in the system, HAFED adopted open bidding system to run its rice mills in association with private parties.

HAFED kept a floor bid price of Rs 13 per quintal for raw rice milling against uniform rate of Rs 12 per quintal of paddy received last year, he added.

''As a result of new system , HAFED was able to get bids ranging between Rs 13 to Rs 25 per quintal. A total of one lakh metric tonnes of paddy is expected to be milled in HAFED rice mills which would yield an additional income of Rs 60 lakh for Hafed rice mills during forthcoming paddy season,'' the spokesman said.

He said that HAFED procured about nine to ten lakh metric tonnes of paddy per annum under Price Support Scheme out of which nine per cent was milled in HAFED's rice mills.

Capacity utilisation of rice mills was about 60 per cent before the introduction of public-private partnership mode in 2004. Now it had gone to more than 100 per cent capacity, the spokesman said.

UNI