The Hindu : Front Page : Rice procurement likely to be less this year

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Thursday, Sep 28, 2006
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Rice procurement likely to be less this year

Special Correspondent

Arrangements made for opening more than 10,000 purchase centres by Govt. agencies

NEW DELHI: Procurement of kharif rice (including paddy in terms of rice) this year for the Public Distribution System is estimated to be about 270 lakh tonnes, which is slightly lower than the 279 lakh tonnes procured last year.

According to the Union Ministry of Food and Public Distribution, procurement of kharif foodgrains began on Monday in Punjab, Haryana and Kerala due to early arrivals of paddy. In other major foodgrain producing States such as Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, procurement operations will begin on October 1. In Chhattisgarh, procurement of paddy will start on October 16 and in Bihar and West Bengal on November 1.

The Ministry has made arrangements for opening more than 10,000 purchase centres by government agencies all over the country of which over 1,000 centres would be in Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and UP. Over 600 centres each would be opened in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra.

It has also directed the Food Corporation of India and State foodgrain procurement agencies to open purchase centres and make necessary arrangements for procurement of paddy and coarse grains at minimum support price. However, farmers are free to sell their produce at higher prices, if possible, in the open market, an official press note has said.

Control rooms have been set up at Krishi Bhavan here. State governments and the regional offices of the FCI have also been asked to set up control rooms for monitoring procurement operations as well as for investigating complaints of distress sale by farmers in the procuring States.

The procurement of paddy will be at a minimum support price of Rs. 580 for the common variety and Rs. 610 for grade `A', which is higher by Rs. 10 a quintal than the MSP fixed last year

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