IIT Kharagpur team runs tests on 80 tonnes of short duration paddy varieties to assess yield
Two batches each of 40 tonnes of paddy are getting shelled by the teams and results are expected Thursday morning.
The teams from Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Kharagpur on Wednesday started conducting tests to examine out turn ratio (OTR) in freshly shelled paddy at a rice mill in Chapwail village near Raikot in Ludhiana district.
Two batches each of 40 tonnes of paddy are getting shelled by the teams and results are expected Thursday morning.
The teams will conduct the tests at Jagraon and Khanna on Thursday or Friday.
During the ongoing kharif (paddy) procurement rice millers have claimed to getting lesser OTR in the paddy of short duration PR126 and other hybrid varieties sown over about 50% of total area (32 lakh tonnes) cultivated under paddy. They say these varieties give rice yield of 62 to 64 kilograms from 100 kilograms of paddy, demanding relaxation from the Centre.
They demanded teams from Union ministry of food and public distribution however the ministry assigned the task to IIT Kharagpur.
As the millers are reluctant to shell and store paddy there is a glut in the mandis, and farmers find it difficult to unload their crop there. The tests will clear our doubts, and we hope the doubts of the millers will be cleared based on the outcome of the tests”, said rice millers association vice-president Ranjit Singh Josson.
