Red Hills rice mill cluster

Introduction

Red Hills, a town located north-west of Chennai, is known for paddy-related business and hosts a cluster of about 200 rice mills, of which only about 100 are presently operational. The majority of these mills fall under the MSME category. The Red Hills cluster processes about 429,000 tonnes of paddy annually to make parboiled rice and raw rice which is mainly supplied to government agencies. About 70 mills produce parboiled rice, which accounts for 69% of total production, and the remaining 30 mills produce only raw rice (31% of total production). Important by-products from rice mills include husk and bran. Husk is used in-house as fuel for boilers; the bran is sold for further processing.

Products manufactured

Parboiled rice, raw rice

Number of MSMEs

100

Energy consumption

Low

Main fuels

Biomass (husk, wood); electricity

Production & turnover

279,000 tpa

Total energy consumption (toe)

19118

Leading industry association(s)

Red Hills Rice Millers, Paddy and Rice Merchants Association

Cluster profile

https://www.sameeeksha.org/pdf/clusterprofile/RedHills_RiceMills_TamilNadu.pdf

Other resources

• MSME-DI Chennai https://msmedi-chennai.gov.in/GARMS_Admin/home.aspx
• District Industries Centre, Thiruvallurhttp://www.dictvlr.in/

Source: Data pertains to 2015–16, collected primarily under TERI–SSEF project