As many as 18 wagons of rice dispatched from Punjab’s godowns to Dimapur, Nagaland, have been rejected due to “first level” pest infestation and insufficient fortified rice kernels, according to The Tribune.
According to the report, a communique on the matter has been sent to the Nagaland government and the regional office of the Food Corporation of India (FCI). This marks the third rejection of a rice consignment from Punjab, with earlier shipments to Arunachal Pradesh and Karnataka also being returned for quality concerns, including excessive broken grains.
The rejected consignment, dispatched from Sunam on November 4 and offloaded in Dimapur on November 11 and 12, comprised 23,097 bags containing 11,241.59 quintals of rice. Quality checks revealed that the rice contained fortified kernels ranging between 0.52% and 0.78%, below the required 0.9% to 1%. Additionally, some of the rice exhibited the first level of pest infestation.
The rice, harvested and milled during the 2022-23 crop year, has raised concerns among farmers and millers in Punjab. They claim the rice is dispatched only after meeting quality standards and suggest that transportation or storage in other states might have led to the damage.
FCI teams from both Punjab and Nagaland are set to conduct fresh quality tests. Speaking to The Tribune, B. Srinivasan, Regional General Manager of FCI Punjab, stated: “From the initial reports, we have gathered that the rice sent to Nagaland is of ‘issuable condition’ and fit for human consumption. It is likely that the infestation or other damage to grains could have happened during the transportation, but all this is a matter of investigation.”