Kerala Cooperative Department’s paddy-to-rice project stuck in files
Thrissur: Kerala’s plan to market state-branded rice and build rice mills under cooperative leadership remains stalled. Despite forming a paddy procurement cooperative, lack of government-owned mills forces reliance on private ones. Projects in Kidangoor and Thakazhi are delayed, and key mills remain underutilized. Farmers face payment delays, and the Cooperative Department lacks the capacity to process stored paddy efficiently.
Thrissur: The Cooperative Department’s plan to procure paddy from farmers and market it as Kerala-brand rice is lying dormant in the files. There was also a move to set up rice mills under the leadership of paddy farmers’ groups as part of the state government’s 100-day action plan.
It was announced that Kerala’s rice would be brought to the market in a way that would compete with private brands. The move to set up a government rice mill on 10 acres in Kidangoor in Kottayam district also did not achieve its goal.
The Kerala Paddy Procurement Processing and Marketing Cooperative Society was established to procure paddy from farmers at a fair price and market it by converting it into rice. The government does not currently own the mills that can procure, crush, and convert the entire paddy in Kerala into rice. Therefore, cooperative societies play the role of intermediaries who transfer paddy to private mills. The government has two mills in Palakkad and Kottayam Vechur. However, these mills cannot process or handle even a quarter of the paddy stored. Of the two modern rice mills announced in 1999, only the one in Palakkad has started operations. Construction at Thakazhi in the Alappuzha district has stalled halfway.
The operations of the Alathur Modern Rice Mill, which has the largest dryer system in Asia, are also at a standstill. In this situation, the Cooperative Department had prepared a detailed project document for setting up government-owned rice mills in Palakkad as well as Kottayam. It was announced that the mill in Kottayam would be able to store and process the entire paddy of central Kerala into rice. The main reason for the delay in the project is that the Cooperative Department or the primary associations do not have the experience and systems to store and process paddy into rice. The farmers are facing a great burden due to not receiving payment for the paddy stored by the supply company on time. In this situation, it was hoped that the storage of paddy by the Cooperative Department would be a great relief to the farmers.
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Source : Mathrubhumi
