Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department top officials, including Secretary Madhusudan Padhi, recently visited 13 districts, identified as low paddy procurement ones, to find out reasons and take steps accordingly to expedite paddy procurement process in those districts. While Padhi visited Bhadrak district on February 2, other officials tripped to Baleswar, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Cuttack, Khordha, Puri, Nayagarh, Ganjam and Gajapati.
During their visits, the officials observed that in many cases farmers’ verified land details were not received from Tehsildars and Revenue Inspectors. Record of land bank details at Mandis is a mandatory as per the new procurement system. Sources said, it was also observed that verification executed at RI and Tehsildar offices and data entry at Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) were not done properly, thus barring many eligible farmers to sell their paddy.
The officials instructed Chief Supply Officers, ARCs and other concerned officials to sort out these problems in a week’s time. Notably, the paddy procurement target has been pegged at 44.6 lakh metric tonne during the current Kharif season. The target during the last Kharif was 32 lakh MT.
Till today, 22.35 lakh MT of paddy has been procured which is two per cent less than the procurement of corresponding period of the last year. The Odisha State Civil Supply Corporation (OSCSC)) has collected 21.25 lakh MT alone. Besides, Markfed 71,336 MT, TDCC 37,052 MT and FCI have procured 153 MT. A total of 1341 MT of paddy has been procured though levy. Agencies like Nafed and Nacof were yet to start their accounts.
Meanwhile, districts like Bargarh, Balangir, Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Nuapada, Koraput have been given additional target for procurement. Among low procurement districts, Baleswar has so far procured 14,782 MT against its target of 60,000 MT of rice. Similarly, Kendrapada has procured 3,014 MT against target of 25,000 MT of rice, sources said.