Considered the ‘rice bowl of India’, Chhattisgarh found no mention in the estimate for paddy procurement in terms of rice during winter/summer crop of Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2016-17 in the list of Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution released on Wednesday.
The list comprises paddy procurement in 8 states mainly-- Andhra Pradesh ,13 lakh metric tonnes (MT), Telangana (15 lakh MT), Odisha (7 lakh MT), Tamil Nadu (5 lakh MT), Kerala (one lakh MT), West Bengal ( 8 lakh MT), Assam (0.25 lakh MT) and Maharashtra (0.75 lakh MT).
Notably, in the conference of the Food Secretaries of the States held in New Delhi on Wednesday held under the Chairpersonship of Preeti Sudan, Secretary, Department of Food & Public Distribution, Government of India , the prospects of production of wheat and procurement estimate for Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) 2017-18 were discussed.
In consultation with the States, it was decided to procure 330.00 lakh MT of wheat during Rabi Marketing Season 2017-18, which is considerably more in comparison with the last season’s actual procurement of 229.61 lakh MT.
In the Conference, the estimate for procurement of paddy grown in Rabi/ Winter/ Summer crop of Kharif Marketing Season 2016-17 for various States were also done in terms of rice.
The estimate is 50 lakh MT. This estimate is over and above the estimate of 330 lakh MT set for Kharif crop of paddy for KMS 2016-17, for which the procurement operations are going on and the paddy procurement in KMS 2016-17 in terms of rice has already reached to the level of 292.31 lakh MT as reported on February 15, 2017, which is nearly 28 lakh MT higher than the procurement of 264.53 lakh MT by the corresponding date in previous year, i.e., KMS 2015-16.
It may be recalled that the Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED) has 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.
He further informed that procurement centers of cooperative societies is seeing heavy arrival of paddy and about 9.06 lakh metric tonnes of paddy has already been purchased at these centers.
Out of the total paddy procured so far, delivery order (DO) for shifting of 36,951 metric tonnes of paddy has also been released, he said while adding that rice millers have lifted 3,942 tonnes of paddy directly from the procurement centers for custom milling.
The State government 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 ended on January 31, 2017.Chhattisgarh stood second in the country in Kharif season 2015-16 among a list of 18 states with targeted 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 have been 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.