Chief Minister Raman Singh, at the video conference held here on Saturday instructed the Collectors to speed up the distribution of paddy bonus. He told them to organise bonus distribution programmes through Primary Agriculture Credit Cooperative Societies and invite in-charge ministers, MPs, MlAs and other peoples’ representatives to the programme.
At the video-conference, secretary, food department, Vikas Sheel, said that the last instalment of paddy bonus Rs 330 crore has been released from the Mantralaya on Saturday. The amount is meant for Bilaspur and Sarguja divisions, he added.
With the last instalment, the state government has so far released total Rs 1,926 crore as paddy bonus to more than 10 lakh farmers, on the paddy purchased through cooperative societies during the last Kharif season 2012-13. The released amount has been given to all the District Cooperative Central Banks through Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation.
The secretary said that during the Kharif marketing year 2012-13, under the support price policy, cooperative societies had procured total 71.34 lakh metric tonne paddy from 10,08,326 farmers of the state and for that they had been paid Rs 8,992 crore.