Rice millers stare at brink

The Minimum Support Price (MSP), announced by the Central government is discouraging the exporters and the number of the rice exporters has come down from 50 to 10. Besides, the new government in Nigeria has changed its foreign exchange (FE) policy and that FE is not applicable for rice imports in the country.

The director of ports V. Ravikumar recently convened a meeting with the shipping trade to know reasons for dwindling of the rice exp-orts. The trade has made it clear that the escalating of paddy prices is a major reason for the decreasing rice exports.

“Owing to increasing of MSP, the paddy cost has escalated. But, in other countries, the paddy is available at cheaper prices than India. The exporters have faced many losses and some of the exporters abandoned the trade unable to bear the losses. The shipment of the rice exports from Kakinada Port has been also fallen down. In future, the exports will be drastically decreased,” said AP Exporters Association president Vinod Kumar Agarwal. He said that Nigeria is a major rice importer from India, but, now it has changed its policy and will push rice exports to more crises. Meanwhile increase of MSP in Paddy, changing levy policy and other factors pushed rice milling industry in Andhra Pradesh into a crisis.

According to rice milling trade, nearly 10 to 15 rice millers downed their shutters as they are finding it difficult to run them due to lack of exports. “The rice millers used to purchase paddy MSP with additional price of Rs 200. According to new levy policy the rice millers are able to purchase only on MSP. This also affect on farmers. The rice millers are unable to run the rice mills in the present conditions,” said EG District Rice Millers President and former State President Ambati Ramakrishna Reddy. He said that many rice millers are about to close their rice millers unable to bear the losses.