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Ministry to expedite milling of rice

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

The Agriculture and Livestock Ministry is to repair 30 rice mills in key producing areas to ensure an uninterrupted supply of locally milled rice to the market at reasonable prices, a Ministry spokesman told the Daily News yesterday.

Under the 100 Day program of the Government,the Post Harvest Training Institute has already identified 30 rice mills in Hambantota, Anuradhapura, Ampara, Polonnaruwa and Mahaweli C Zone for repair under this program on a priority basis. Initiatives will also be taken to repair rice mills in other areas as well in future, he said.

These 30 rice mills have already been inspected and the reports submitted on their technical viability. Small faults which can be repaired at a low cost are now being attended to. The Bank of Ceylon will grant loans where large scale repairs are involved.

A Rs. 400000 loan will be provided to each rice mill heeding large repairs. The money will be released after the Post Harvest Training Institute submit a feasibility report to the Bank of Ceylon. The institute has already prepared reports on 6 rice mills whose owners have expressed willingness to repair their mills, he said.

The spokesman said:" Sri Lanka's annual rice production is nearly 2.6 million Metric tonnes. This is very close to the country's total annual rice requirement of 2.8 million Metric tonnes. Two types of rice mills are operated in the country. The small types mill small quantities of rice for domestic consumption while large mills operate on a commercial scale producing a large amount of rice to the local market.

At present there are 2000 commercial rice mills in the country. The majority of the country's paddy harvest is milled at these rice mills, he said.

He said paddy milled in modern mills yield 70 per cent rice. But the existing rice mills can only produce 65 per cent rice. Except few rice mills, other mills are not equipped to sort out stones or sand. In addition, when the rice is milled, a large amount gets crushed.

In order to overcome this situation, Agriculture and Livestock Minister S.B. Dissanayake has taken immediate steps to renovate and modernise rice mills to produce quality rice to the market at concessionary rates, he said.

Meanwhile the Ministry has conducted several workshops countrywide to educate the rice mill owners. A large number of mill owners in other areas have also expressed their desire to attend such workshops, he added. 

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