Covid-19 Lockdown: Flour mills run at 25% capacity on wheat, labour paucity

Wheat procurement has become a problem due to closure of several mandis. Also, truck operators aren't plying fear of police harassment, despite govt's go-ahead on inter-state movement

Flour mills across the country have reduced their operating capacity to an average 25 per cent due to unavailability of wheat, workers and packaging materials. This follows the 21-day nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19).

Spread across 2,500 small, medium and large units, India has around 25 million tonnes of installed wheat processing capacity annually for producing flour, sooji and maida.

Small wheat processing units, which comprise 50 per cent of the total number of mills, are shut due to blockage of working