Statewide special campaign for the purchase of paddy and maize at Minimum Support Price (MSP) was launched by the Chhattisgarh Government here on Wednesday.
Chief Minister Raman Singh made a surprise visit to the paddy purchasing centre located at Anjora village in Rajnandgaon district on the inaugural day of the campaign launch, officials informed.
He interacted with a number of farmers at the centre and provided them details about the facilities provided by the State Government at the paddy and maize procurement centres.
Kamladevi, a resident of village Magarlota, brought 123 bags of paddy to the procurement centre.
Singh enquired about agriculture issues and crop yield from the farmers.
The Chief Minister also observed the quality of paddy and the weighing machines .
He appealed to farmers to dry the paddy and cleanse it and then bring it to the procurement centres.
It may be mentioned here that the authorities had fixed a maximum purchasing ceiling of 15 quintals an acre in the year 2017-18.
Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department had issued orders to District Collectors and other concerned officers to be vigilant and guide the farmers.
The officers said that three new procurement centres had been opened in the State. There are 1992 purchasing centers of the 1333 Primary Agriculture Credit Co-Operative Societies Procurement centers.
The target is to purchase 70 lakh metric tonnes of paddy and 10,000 metric tonnes of maize this year.
The farmers have to being their loan passbooks and the payment will be made as per the Central Government directives on the quality of paddy and maize. Paddy will be purchased from Monday to Friday.
The paddy will be purchased on 42 mandi premises of the 69 Agriculture Produce Markets and 73 'Up-Mandis'. The paddy is being procured through the MARKFED in all the 27 districts of the State.
Singh wished the campaign a bright and prosperous future. In a message he mentioned that this is the biggest and longest campaign being operated for the welfare of farmers in the State. About 15.79 lakh farmers had been registered in the Co-Operative Samities. There are about 1.27 lakh more farmers registered than the last year.
The Chief Minister said that paddy purchase is being done as per the declared policies of the State Government. The day farmers sell their paddy the payments will be done Online the same day. The purchase of paddy will be done till January 31, 2018. Maize will be purchased till May 31, 2018.
Singh called upon the farmers to take advantage of the facilities and sell their paddy at the procurement centers only. Paddy purchase centers had been opened in every five Gram Panchayats. There is total transparency in purchase of paddy and payments.
He said that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of paddy had been increased by Rs 80 this year. The common paddy will be purchased at Rs 1,550 a quintal and A-Grade/ thin paddy at Rs 1,590 a quintal. The MSP of Maize had been hiked by Rs 60 this year.
It may be recalled that the Chhattisgarh Government will be setting up a ‘Project Monitoring Unit’ for successful implementation of Paddy Procurement, Storage and Disposal system in the State, officials informed.
Notably, Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs , Food and Public Distribution has stated that paddy procurement is already robust in Chhattisgarh and Odisha states.
The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has initiated special efforts for procurement in the Eastern States of India, where there were frequent complaints of distress sale of paddy and procurement system was ineffective, it stated.
Accordingly, State-wise five-year Action Plan has been drawn by FCI for Uttar Pradesh (with focus on Eastern U.P.), Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Assam, where concerns exist about distress sale of paddy , it stated.
Attempt is to increase procurement of rice in these States so as to reach out to all farmers in various paddy growing districts of these States. The procurement target from the eastern states by the end of Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2019-20 is 155.93 lakh MT. Presently, the figure stands at 53.65 lMT for KMS 2014-2015.
Accordingly, FCI opened 635 procurement centres (including 401 with private support) in KMS 2015-16 and 722 (including 459 with private support) in KMS 2016-17 (as on 28.03.2017) comparison to only 141 in previous Season. Total 61841 and 20063 (as on 28.03.2017) procurement centres have been opened in KMS 2015-16 and KMS 2016-17 respectively.
Due to these efforts of FCI, State agencies and private players, the procurement of rice has been increased to 70.70 lMT in KMS 2015-16 and 63.99 lMT in the ongoing KMS 2016-17.
It may be recalled that the Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED) had released Rs 1,301 crore to district cooperative central banks for taking up paddy procurement exercise, the State Government had informed on November 30 last year in a press release.
“The money would be transferred online in the bank accounts of farmers selling their paddy on support price,” President of MARKFED Radhakrishna Gupta had stated last year.
The State Government had decided to purchase 65 lakh metric tonnes of paddy during the Kharif Marketing Season for year 2016-17. The procurement season that had started on November 15, 2016 and ended on January 31, 2017.
Notably, Chhattisgarh stood second in the country in Kharif season 2015-16 among a list of 18 states with targetted procurement of 36 lakh metric tonnes of paddy crop during 2015-16 as per information made available by the Central Government in that year.
Punjab was ranked first in the country in 2015-16 Kharif season among 18 states in the country with paddy procurement target of 82 lakh metric tonnes , according to the data of 18 states released by the Centre.
In a meeting of State Food Secretaries held in New Delhi in 2015-16, the procurement target for Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2015-16 was finalised at a total of 300 lakh metric tonnes in the rice growing states.
States were asked to identify immediately areas with maximum paddy production and to open adequate purchase centers and deploy sufficient manpower. They have also been advised to make arrangements for publicizing MSP fixed, procurement centers opened through print and audio-visual media as well as through pamphlets in local languages, officials had stated.
The Governments have also been asked to prepare details of storage plan for the ensuing Kharif Marketing Season and have an action plan to meet the deficit in storage requirements, if required, they had stated.
Regarding Packaging material, Food Secretaries were requested to place indents for purchase of jute bags in time to avoid last minute shortage of packaging material.
The States were also requested to furnish, on daily basis, the revenue district-wise procurement details of previous day for Online Procurement Monitoring System (OPMS).
The FCI was directed to constitute joint teams with the State Governments to oversee the conduct of procurement operations and to attend specific complaints, problems etc, officials stated.