Chandigarh, Aug 25 (PTI) Rice delivery operations, including allotment of mills, their registration and physical verification, will be undertaken online in Punjab under the new custom milling policy for paddy approved the state government, an official spokesperson said on Tuesday.

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The Cabinet, met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, approved the new custom milling policy for 2020-21, aimed at ensuring seamless milling of paddy and delivery of rice into the central pool from more than 4,150 mills operating in the state, the spokesperson said.

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To ensure smooth paddy procurement, the state government has also decided to launch a dedicated portal.

The whole gamut of yearly procurement operations – from allotment of mills, their registration, application of release order, deposit of fee and levy/ security, besides all important monitoring of stocks, will be done online now on a continuous basis, the spokesperson said.

All the state procuring agencies, Pungrain, Markfed, Punsup, Punjab State Warehousing Corporation (PSWC) and Food Corporation of India, and rice millers and all other stakeholders will operate and interact on the website, with the department of Food acting as the nodal department.

Under the policy, the sole criterion for allotment of paddy to mills this season would be the miller's performance in the previous year and an additional percentage-wise incentive would be provided to mills as per their date of delivery of rice against milling of custom milled paddy in the previous year.

Mills which had completed their entire milling by January 31, 2020, would be eligible for an additional 15 per cent of paddy milled in 2019-20, as per the policy.

Those who had completed delivery of rice by February 28, 2020 would get an additional 10 per cent of paddy.

For security of the stocks, millers this year would be required to furnish enhanced bank guarantee, equal to value of 10 per cent of acquisition cost of allocable paddy above 3,000 Metric Tonnes (MTs), as against 5 per cent on 5,000 MTs last year.

Lowering of the threshold limit for submission of bank guarantee would bring an additional 1,000 mills within the direct monitoring ambit, said spokesperson.

In addition, a miller shall have to purchase a minimum of 150 MTs of paddy in his own account or he shall deposit an amount of Rs 5 lakh (non-refundable) in state treasury and Rs 5 lakh in form of refundable security online in Pungrain account.

The state is expected to procure 170 lakh MTs of paddy during kharif season beginning October 1, with total area under paddy sowing this year at 26.60 lakh hectares, down from 29.20 Lakh hectares in the previous season in line with the state's crop diversification efforts.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)