Another OTS for defaulting rice millers in Punjab

The Punjab government will soon come out with another 'one-time settlement' (OTS) scheme for defaulting rice millers to recover about Rs 2,000 crore on account of undelivered rice, a minister said.

The department had been able to recover a minuscule amount of Rs 22 crore in the earlier OTS which was rolled out last year.

"We will soon come out with a new OTS scheme for defaulting rice millers," Punjab Food and Civil Supplies Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu said here today.

"I have asked officials concerned to make their suggestions for the new OTS," he further said.

He warned if defaulting rice millers fail to take advantage of the new OTS, then action as per law will be taken against them.

In the last OTS, the defaulters had the option to pay the entire outstanding principal amount in one go, within a period of 45 days, without having to pay any interest, or to pay in three installments with 10 per cent interest.

It was also decided that where interest was paid, it should not be higher than the principal amount in any case. Those defaulters choosing to pay back the principal as a lump sum amount were entitled to go back to milling from the next season.

The minister said a new rice policy would also be rolled out wherein appropriate steps would be taken to prevent incident like paddy going missing in a mill in Amritsar this year.

Notably, the department had found over 2.50 lakh bags of paddy worth Rs 32 crore to be missing from a rice mill in Amritsar in April this year.