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No increase in rice price for the next 6 months
Posted on: 07/Mar/2017 10:14:02 AM
The public was rather anxious expecting an increase in the price of rice especially after the recent monsoon rain failure. However, the rice mill owners in Tamil Nadu have announced that there will not be any increase in rice price for the next 6 months.
The main element of the Tamil Nadu’s fertility in agriculture, the Northeast monsoon rains, failed miserably last year. The monsoon rains last season was below 40 percent of the average expected rainfall. Because of this, the state of Tamil Nadu is facing drought conditions in several places. Earlier there were 3 harvests- however, now, there is only kuruvai and samba rice harvests.
The demand for rice from the Tamil Nadu public is 91 Lakhs metric tons per year on an average.
However, the domestic yield on harvest is only 72 to 75 Lakhs metric tons. The shortfall is taken care of by purchasing rice of 15 to 16 Lakh metric tons from the neighboring states of Karnataka and Andhra.
Earlier, harvesting used to be done by using 21 Lakh hectares of land for agriculture. Now, the land available for agriculture has reduced by 40 percent to only 14 Lakh hectares of land. Around 65 Lakh Metric tons is the yield from this reduced agricultural land.
Earlier, agriculture was done in the delta area with samba in 7 Lakh hectares, kuruvai in 3 Lakh hectares, and thus 10 lakh hectares were available for agriculture.
Now, there is a shortage of water and hence, agriculture is done only on 6 Lakh hectares. This has led to a reduction of 30 lakh metric ton yield.
However, since there is the avenue to buy rice from the northern states, the rice mill owners informed that there is no problems in meeting the demand.
The General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Rice Mill Owners and rice/paddy traders Associations Federation, Mohan, informed that earlier rice was procured for the states of Karnataka and Andhra. Now, rice is being procured also from the states of MadhyaPradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, and Odisha as well. So, no shortage is expected.
Further, there has been a good harvest in Telangana. So, 33 lakh Metric tons of rice will reach Tamil Nadu. This confirms that there will be sufficient stock of rice for the next 6 months. So, the public will not be put to any hardships.
Currently, there is an additional stock of 5 lakh metric tons of 3 kinds of rice. These 3 kinds of rice are being sold as superfine, fine and coarse.
On the superfine type, white Ponni rice can be grown in Tamil Nadu. PPT kind of rice is procured from Andhra and Karnataka. New rice is sold at Rs. 40 to Rs. 45 per kg. Old rice is sold at Rs. 50 per kg.
The rice kinds like Rupali and mini-cut are procured from the northern states. The new rice of this kind is sold at Rs. 36 per kg and the old rice at Rs. 42.
Court type of rice belongs to the fatter kind. CR 1009 and Ambai 16 are grown in Tamil Nadu. The price is Rs. 35 per kg. This is being sold at this same price over the last 6 years.
