PATNA: The paddy procurement drive was launched in the 19 south Bihar districts on Monday. The target is to procure 45 lakh metric tonnes of paddy from farmers across the state till January 31, state cooperative department minister Subhash Singh said.
“The selected primary agricultural credit societies (PACS) and vyapar mandals have been asked to procure paddy from farmers at the minimum support price (MSP). The farmers who sell their produce at the procurement centres of the selected agencies will get their money without delay. Instructions have been issued to make all arrangements in this regard,” Singh said.
The state has over 8,000 PACS and over 100 vyapar mandals, but only the selected among them have been pressed into paddy procurement. After purchasing paddy from farmers, the two agencies will get it milled at the identified rice mills in the state before delivering the rice to Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation (BSFCSC).
The farmers will be paid Rs1,940 per quintal. Each of the ‘ryots’ (land owning farmer) will be able to sell 250 quintals of paddy, and a ‘bataidar’ (sharecropper), 100 quintals.
The state cabinet has already given bank guarantee to the BSFCSC to raise Rs5,000 crore from the commercial banks to facilitate the timely payment to the farmers. The money has been made available to the district level central cooperative banks.
Incidentally, the paddy procurement was first started on November 1 in the districts of Purnia and Kosi division, followed by the districts of Tirhut, Darbhanga and Saran divisions on November 10. The paddy procurement in the districts of the remaining divisions, including Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger and Magadh, started on Monday.
Due to the four-phase floods and heavy rain this year, including in October, the paddy harvesting was delayed and only 9,000 tonnes of paddy could be procured in 19 districts till November 14.
In Patna district, 80.4 tonnes of paddy were procured from the farmers in 11 blocks, a district administration communique said.
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