Study of Flour Mills in Delhi

A survey of several flour mills (atta chakkis) in New Delhi was conducted to evaluate their peiformance. Both horizontal and vertical disc types of mills of sizes (30, 41, 46, 51 and 76 cm stone disc diameter) and horsepower ranging between 2 and 20 were taken into account. The capacity of these units ranged between 10 and 200 kg/L Samples of 500 g of wheat and flour were collected from each mill and were analysed for wheat grain and flour quality. Infested and damaged grains were in 2–10% range. Sieve analysis of the flour indicated that the average partkle size and fineness modulus of the flour were in the range 0.1875 to 0.2023 mm and 1.052 to 1.297, respectively. Uniformity index was 0:1:9 for all the samples from different mills, which revealed the uniformity of grinding. Attention on the quality aspects is completely lacking in these milling units.