Andhra Pradesh: Millers express concern over inordinate delay in issuing waybills

Nellore: Even as rice millers are facing an inconvenient situation with sudden halting of waybills to transport custom milled rice (CMR) to the government, the administration is procuring similar rice from other districts spending huge amount of money for wagons and other incidental expenditure.

The reason is simple that there is a shortage of Sortex rice for distribution under PDS.

In fact, rice millers in the district express concern over the sudden stoppage of waybills to transport milled rice to the government. The target to supply was 25,000 metric tonnes of custom milled rice (non-Sortex) during last year and the millers have already supplied 15,000 metric tonnes.

Even though they are prepared to supply the balance of 10,000 MTs, heavy rains in November 2021 created problems for the transportation of the stocks. After two months, district officials again directed the millers to complete the target of 10,000 metric tonnes and the latter jumped into action and started milling and loaded the rice in trucks.

Thanks to the government, millers failed to download the truck sheets and the website itself disappeared after a while.

Further, millers observed that the balance of the non-Sortex custom milled rice target was cancelled in Nellore district and some other district was asked to supply.

District president of the Rice Millers and Dealers Association N Subrahmanyam Reddy wondered why the State government had asked them to complete the supply of balance of CMR in Nellore when they wanted to engage other districts to supply the remaining quantity.

He said the officials were getting stocks from other districts spending huge amounts of money even as huge stocks of CMR in the district was waiting for issue of waybills.

"Transporting stocks from other districts was ridiculous when around 10,000 MTs of rice is available in the district. The government is yet to clear dues to the tune of Rs 150 crore to about 200 millers in the district and it has been kept pending since 2017-18. They are not clearing dues and are creating this kind of hurdle for transportation. We also sent representation to the district officials about the crisis and there was no response from them," Subrahmanyam Reddy lamented.

He added that trucks loaded with rice are waiting for orders from the officials concerned even today and they are incurring huge demurrage charges for delaying the transportation.

Subrahmanyam Reddy thanked Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu who had called for the opening of PPCs for paddy collection even during August.