Chandigarh: The marketing season for paddy produced last year will end in Sept, but 32 lakh MT of the crop is still stacked in Punjab’s rice mills, waiting to be processed into rice.With only two months left before paddy procurement begins, Punjab is staring at an acute shortage of storage space.The paddy cannot be milled because 153.5 lakh MT of milled rice is yet to be moved from the state, leaving little storage space. Under the Food Corporation of India (FCI) system, millers can process only as much paddy as storage space created by the evacuation of older stocks permits. These allocations are regulated through weekly release orders issued by local inspectors.Punjab is also holding 119 lakh MT of wheat, while another 29 lakh MT is lying outside govt warehouses in rice mills and grain markets because of inadequate storage.The situation is so severe that while Punjab has the capacity to store 180 lakh MT of foodgrains, it is already storing 296 lakh MT.Although the Centre has deployed special trains to move foodgrains out of Punjab and free up storage space, the rice industry says the pace of evacuation remains far too slow. Between Jan and June 2025, Punjab dispatched 58 lakh tonnes of rice and 61 lakh tonnes of wheat, taking the total evacuation to 119 lakh tonnes.According to the rice industry, only 39 lakh tonnes of rice and 39.5 lakh tonnes of wheat have been moved out of the state during the corresponding period this year.This has brought the total evacuation down to just 78.5 lakh tonnes — nearly 35% lower than the previous year. Over the last six months, Punjab has been dispatching an average of about 5 lakh tonnes of wheat and 6 lakh tonnes of rice every month.Punjab Rice Industry Association president Bharat Bhushan Binta said the matter had been raised on several occasions with the secretary, department of food and public distribution, Govt of India, as well as the chairman of the Food Corporation of India (FCI).Ranjit Singh Jossan, vice-president of the Basmati Rice Millers and Exporters Association, said the slow pace of milling and evacuation had significantly increased pressure on the state’s already overstretched grain storage infrastructure. “The storage situation has become increasingly difficult despite repeated efforts by the Punjab govt and the industry to persuade the Centre to accelerate the movement of foodgrains from the state,” he said.According to experts, the foodgrain distribution pattern across the country has undergone significant changes over the past five years. Several states that were once major consumers of Punjab’s rice have substantially increased their own paddy production and are now meeting a large part of their domestic requirements locally.As a result, the demand for rice supplied from Punjab has declined considerably, slowing the movement of stocks from the state.There are indications that the Centre is considering releasing a three-month foodgrain allocation in advance under the public distribution system. If implemented soon, the decision is expected to accelerate the lifting of rice and wheat from Punjab and help create much-needed storage space before the next procurement season.So far, overall milling progress stands at 78.77%, with Moga recording the lowest progress among districts at 66.6%, followed by Ludhiana at 67.94%.
