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Abstract. Paddy is processed into rice through rice mill. Major rice mills of Bangladesh are gradually running out from the paddy processing business as they are unable to properly dry paddy under the open sun. Financial condition of major rice mills does not allow them to adopt separate mechanical dryers for parboiled and aromatic paddy. Considering the mentioned situations, an integrated 12 ton capacity recirculating paddy dryer was designed in Bangladesh context and installed at Moti Auto Rice mill, Shyamganj Bazar, Purbadhala, Netrokona. The rotor rpm of the dryer was kept 5 to control grain exposure time to hot air in each cycle of recirculation. Drying temperature was monitored with Fluke data logger connecting K type thermocouple sensors. The results obtained from the first one set of experiments showed that hot air temperature distribution within the dryer was uniform and both parboiled and aromatic paddy was successfully dried in the designed dryer. About 17.5 hour and 3.03 hour were required to dry about 12 ton parboiled (29.4% to 13.3% moisture content) and aromatic paddy (16.7% to 12% moisture content) exposing 69.2°C and 72.9°C hot air temperature respectively, on an average. Milled rice recovery of the mechanically dried paddy was found higher compared to sun dried paddy. The performance of the installed husk fuel-based dryer was found better compared to the existing sun drying method. However, further experiments of the 12 ton dryer will be required before recommending the dryer as a viable drying solution in order to protect the major rice mills from complete shutdown.