How can Chhattisgarh’s 3,000 rice mills stay profitable when the paddy runs out mid-year?
Chhattisgarh’s 3,000 rice mills sit at the centre of India’s rice supply, yet earn about ₹500 a tonne, wait months to be paid and run short of paddy by mid-year. We traced where the strain comes from, using public data.
An independent research summary built from public data
The challenge
Chhattisgarh grows about 7% of India’s rice, and much of it passes through some 3,000 mills that turn procured paddy into rice for the central pool. On paper the business is steady. In practice, a mill earns about ₹500 for every tonne it mills, waits months to be paid, and by mid-year runs short of paddy to mill.
Our client needed to understand where this pressure comes from, and which problems are structural rather than seasonal.
What we did
We built a picture of the industry entirely from public sources: procurement and lifting data, state and central policy, industry reporting and news coverage. We followed the paddy from the buying centre to the mill and on to FCI. At each step we asked who carries the cost and who carries the risk.
Each problem was sized with public numbers, sourced on the page, and brought together in a 30-page research summary.
What we found
The strain is structural, not a bad season. Paddy is bought between November and January but can wait up to eight months before it is milled: first at buying centres, often in the open, then in mill godowns until FCI takes the rice.
While it waits, it dries, cracks and yellows. The mill still owes rice on the paddy’s full purchase weight. It loses whole grain it cannot replace, and risks having its rice downgraded or sent back. With 47 lakh tonnes of rice unlifted in August 2026, godowns stay full and the cycle repeats.
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