3 modern rice mills in Tiruchy ravaged, paddy stock damaged

It is said, there are three modern rice mills located in the Viralimalai Road near Manapparai and all the three mills had collapsed unable to withstand the velocity of the cyclone. It is said, the farmers loaded the paddy for pounding and the mill owners have stocked the goods worth over Rs 1 crore. The modern rice mills owned by Mohan and Sakthi and the entire building at one of the mills had collapsed and the other two mills suffered partial damage. The owners calculated the loss, including the modern machineries, the buildings and the paddy stocks to Rs 6 crore.

It is said, the people from Manapparai, Viralimalai, Tiruchy, Marungapuri and the adjacent areas approach these modern mills. In order to compete with the mills in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the production units in Tiruchy adopted modernisation to ramp up output through these modern rice mills.

This apart, five ordinary rice mills too had collapsed in the cyclone. Since the devastation took place in the wee hours, the workers of the mills were away and fortunately, loss of life did not take place.  According to the owners of these rice mills, they have not witnessed such a heavy damage in the past three decades. They said, since Tiruchy is situated inland, the cyclone was not predicted to hit these mills and so they had not moved the paddy stocked for pounding to safer places.