Raipur: Under the Paddy procurement scheme, Chhattisgarh procured nearly 98 lakh metric tonnes of paddy from the farmers at MSP. The highest procurement so far since the formation of the state 22 years ago.
A statement issued by an official from the state public relations dept informed procurement of 97.97 LMT pf paddy until Monday evening, the last day of paddy procurement. Chhattisgarh began procuring paddy for the Kharif season 2021-22 from December 1st. According to the records, the state in 2020-21 procured 92 LMT while in 2019-2020 purchased 83.94 LMT. CM Bhupesh Baghel had extended the procurement drive from 31st January to 7th February, as the state revived untimely rainfall due to which scores of farmers couldn’t sell their produce.
This year as many as 21,77,283 farmers sold paddy at Minimum support price which was 1,23,683 more than the previous year. Lauding the efforts of the procurement centres, the official said, “ “Completing the paddy procurement without any interruption, despite the shortage of jute gunny sacks and untimely rainfall, is a remarkable achievement in itself.”
According to the information given by state food secretary Topeshwar Verma, so far 65.43 LMT of the total procure has been picked up for custom milling. Out of this, nearly 9.47LMT of rice was deposited with the FCI and 7.66 LMT was sent to the state civil supply corporation.