Kharif paddy procurement up 17.6 per cent to 620 lakh tonne
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, FEB 10, 2021: THE government has procured 620.04 lakh tonne of paddy in the current Kharif Marketing Season (KMS), said the Agriculture Ministry on Tuesday, mentioning this was an increase of 17.6 per cent against the corresponding purchase of around 527 lakh tonne last year.
The ministry said, the procurement of paddy is continuing smoothly in the procuring States and Union Territories (UTs) of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Karnataka, West Bengal and Tripura.
As of February 8, the government has purchased 620.04 lakh tonne of paddy at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) value of Rs. 1,17,064.59 crore.
Out of the total purchase, Punjab alone has contributed over 202 lakh tonne which is 32.71 per cent of the total procurement.
Further, based on the proposal from the States, the government has procured 3.08 lakh tonne of moong, urad, tur, groundnut pods and soyabean having MSP value of Rs. 1,662.87 crore from 1,67,389 farmers in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Similarly, 5,089 tonne of copra, a perennial crop, having MSP value of Rs. 52.40 crore has also been procured from 3,961 farmers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The government has also procured 91,02,977 bales of seed cotton, kapas , worth Rs. 26,533.91 crore from 18,82,021 farmers in the States of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka.