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Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal called on the union agriculture minister Shard Pawar and urged him to allow relaxations in the specifications for the acceptance of rice manufactured out of PAU-201 variety of paddy at the earliest to enable Punjab to contribute maximum rice in the central food grain kitty.
Taking up the issue of excess damage in PAU-201 variety of paddy, the chief minister apprised Pawar that the Punjab government and its procuring agencies had procured more than 141 lakh tonnes of paddy despite the drought like conditions prevailing in the state.
"Out of the total paddy procured, about 30 lakh tonnes was of PAU-201 variety which had been recently introduced by the Punjab Agriculture University after the concurrence and orders of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR). This variety of paddy being a high yielding, low water consuming was also both farmer as well as eco-friendly," Badal mentioned.
But the rice produced out of this variety of paddy had higher damage/discolored percentage ranging from 7-8%. Consequently, the rice millers were reluctant to accept if for custom milling as they apprehended a lot of hardships in its delivery to FCI. However, the cause of rice millers was taken up with the Government of India at various levels and decided to draw samples of this variety of paddy with active co-operation of all concerned.
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