Farmers in North Indian States of Punjab and Haryana are feeling the pinch as prices of non Basmati rice have dropped by almost Rs 200-250 per quintal with exporters refusing to lift the grain due to the recent ban export imposed by the government.

Farmers in these states, who grew hybrid variety of the crop like PUSA 1121 and Sharbati and duplicate basmati as part of crop diversification programme, are now feeling cheated as they are not finding the buyers in the grain markets.

India is one of the world's largest rice exporters by volume, shipping out around 300,000 MT of non-basmati varieties a month.