Why CMR Out-Turn Drops Below 67%: Moisture, Drying & Defending the Shortfall

A miller under CMR must return 67 kg of raw rice (or 68 kg parboiled) for every 100 kg of paddy — the prescribed out-turn ratio. When paddy arrives wet, above the 17% moisture limit, drying it down for milling removes weight, so the actual out-turn can fall toward 62%. That gap is what triggers a shortfall notice — and this guide explains why it happens and how to defend it with data.

The out-turn ratio is a hard line

Under Custom Milled Rice (CMR), the paddy isn't yours — a state agency or FCI hands it to you to mill and you return the rice. The out-turn ratio (OTR) fixes how much: 67% for raw rice, 68% for parboiled. Return less and, on paper, you owe the shortfall — regardless of why it happened.

Why moisture quietly eats your out-turn

The prescribed moisture limit for paddy is 17%. But paddy — especially in a wet kharif — often arrives at 22–27% moisture, and has to be dried down to roughly 13% before it can be milled. That drying removes water weight the OTR never accounted for. The physics is simple: wetter paddy in means less rice weight out, and the out-turn slips from 67% toward the low 60s.

How the gap becomes a dispute

This is where millers get hurt. The agency sees a number below the OTR and issues a shortfall notice. You know the real cause was moisture, not diversion — but “I dried wet paddy” is hard to prove after the fact without the intake readings, the drying record and the milled output tied together, batch by batch. A verbal explanation rarely wins against a spreadsheet that only shows the shortfall.

The fix isn't more milling — it's evidence

You can't change the physics of wet paddy. What you can change is whether you can prove what happened. The millers who defend shortfalls successfully are the ones who can show, per lot: the moisture at intake, what it was dried to before milling, the paddy-in and rice-out for that batch, and the resulting out-turn next to the norm. With that trail, a shortfall stops being an accusation and becomes an accounting fact you can stand behind.

What a defensible CMR record captures per lot

• Moisture at intake — dated, at the gate, before anything else.
• Drying step — what the lot was brought down to before milling.
• Paddy in / rice out — the actual weights for that specific batch.
• Out-turn vs norm — computed against the 67% / 68% obligation, automatically.

How Millingo helps here

Millingo is built for the CMR world, so it records moisture at intake, the drying step and the paddy-in/rice-out for every lot, then computes out-turn against the norm automatically. When a shortfall notice arrives, you're not reconstructing months of registers — you have the batch-level evidence ready. Millingo doesn't change your yield; it gives you the record to explain and defend it.

Frequently asked questions