NEW DELLHI: The millers will find it difficult to supply old milled rice or recycled PDS rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from April next year. The food ministry said on Friday that the government-owned FCI will deploy a testing regime to ascertain the age of milled rice, which has been successfully implemented in Andhra Pradesh.
Union food and public distribution secretary Sudhanshu Pandey told reporters that FCI is also carrying out this test and the aim is to start this from April next year across the country “to check recycling of rice”.
According to officials from food and civil supplies of the Andhra Pradesh government, they use a mix of chemical solutions and a sample of only 5 gram of milled rice is put in a test tube filled with the chemical mix. After one minute, the colours of the milled rice and the solution changes. If it becomes green, then the rice is considered to be freshly milled. In case, the colour changes to orange, it indicates the rice was milled 5-6 months back. “In such cases, we do more due diligence to ensure the quality is not compromised,” said an official.
The food and civil supplies secretary of Andhra Pradesh Kona Sasidhar said, “AP Civil Supplies Corporation evolved this innovative technique on its own and has been using it for two seasons. It has proved to be very effective in curbing recycling of rice.”
Sources in FCI also said deployment of technology is the best way out to detect old milled rice and will ensure that only recently milled rice comes to the corporation for distribution to the public under different schemes.
“After procuring paddy, we give them to millers and get the milled rice for storage to meet the requirement. Since this is a loose food item, there is no option other than going for some technology solution. You can’t add any colour or put a coating on rice to prevent diversion as it is done in the case of kerosene supplied through PDS or subsidised urea by adding colour or doing neem coating,” the official said.