Chandigarh, Feb. 3 -- The Union ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution initiated a pilot project last week to segregate broken rice from the stocks handed over to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) by rice millers. This has been done to improve the quality of foodgrain (rice) supplied to consumers and to ease storage woes under public distribution.

Four states, Punjab, Haryana, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have been asked to mill 10,000 tonnes of paddy each and segregate broken rice.

The paddy stocks have permissible limits of 25% broken rice when shelled, which has now been mandated to be separated by the Union ministry. From 100 kg of paddy, 67 kg of rice is recovered, which has 17 kg (25%) broken rice content out...