Chandigarh, July 7: Haryana rice exporters and millers have approached the Union Government seeking a one-year grace period from newly tightened environmental regulations, warning that immediate enforcement will cause severe financial distress. Industry leaders presented their grievances to Union Minister for Power, Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar during a high-level meeting at the PWD Rest House, following coordinated moves by central and state pollution bodies to lower permissible particulate matter emissions in the National Capital Region.
The regulatory shift involves a joint directive from the Commission for Air Quality Management, the Central Pollution Control Board, and the Haryana State Pollution Control Board. Under these updated parameters, the maximum particulate matter limit for biomass fuel-based boilers has been sharply lowered from 80 milligrams per normal cubic meter to 50 milligrams per normal cubic meter.
Industrial representatives asserted that the sudden reduction places an impractical economic burden on sectors already dealing with market challenges. As a compromise, the associations proposed that the 50-milligram limit be evaluated as an annual average, while maintaining the older 80-milligram cap as the absolute ceiling for daily operations.
Following the deliberations, Haryana Rice Exporters Association President Sushil Jain affirmed that the Union Minister gave positive indications regarding their grievances. “We have requested a one-year deferment and the Union Minister has assured us,” Jain declared. He added that the delegation also pushed to keep Karnal classified under Category-III of the National Capital Region due to its distance of over 100 kilometers from Delhi, which should logically entitle local units to distinct regulatory relaxations.
The industry also expressed strong opposition to duplicating surveillance protocols, requesting the complete abolition of mandatory third-party emission audits for facilities that already utilize real-time online monitoring setups. Beyond pollution guidelines, Jain stated that the state’s industrial regularization policy from last year remains flawed, describing the rule mandating a cluster of 50 industries within a 10-acre pocket as entirely unfeasible for independent businesses.
Simultaneously, local processing logistics have hit a major bottleneck due to warehousing deficits. Karnal Rice Millers and Dealers Association President Saurabh Gupta declared that local operators are completely stuck, unable to hand over custom-milled rice to the Food Corporation of India. Gupta maintained that the Karnal godowns are overflowing because of massive leftover wheat stocks, a crisis worsened by the official redirection of rice deliveries from neighboring districts into the exact same facility.
