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Govt. demands Rs. 1,000 as MSP for paddy

PUDUCHERRY: Minister for Agriculture and Industries V.Vaithilingam on Tuesday said the Puducherry Government would ask the Centre to announce a minimum support price (MSP) of Rs.1,000 a quintal of paddy.

He told reporters here that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the Puducherry Agro Services and Industries Corporation (PASIC) would set up a total of nine procurement centres in Puducherry and Karaikal for the purchase of paddy from December 15.

The FCI had converted its five marketing committees into designated procurement centres, he said, adding last year 10,000 tonnes of paddy was procured in the Union Territory.

As of now, the farmers had been given the MSP of Rs.695 for common variety of paddy and Rs.725 for fine variety, he added.

Mr.Vaithilingam said he would hold talks with firms in Saudi Arabia shortly for setting up of desalination plants in the Union Territory. A Rs.100-crore project for installing a desalination plant in the private sector in Karaikal had already been cleared. The company had been allotted 50 acres of land on lease. It had also got the Central Environment Ministry’s clearance, he added.

The plant would be installed by the biggest desalination company in Saudi Arabia, at the industrial growth centre at Polagam in the region. Initially, the desalinated water would be used for industrial purpose, he said.

The government had set up a control room at the office of the Director of Animal Husbandry in Puducherry to attend to cattle affected by ‘foot and mouth’ disease which had spread through animals brought from other States. Adequate stock of medicine to treat the affected cattle was available, he pointed out.

Referring to complaints of frequent tripping and disruption in power supply in some areas, Mr.Vaithilingam said the disruption was caused by the fault in a potential transformer at the sub-station at Villianur on the eve of Deepavali festival. Now the problem had been solved by the personnel of the Electricity Department, he added. Though the department had not been rigid to domestic consumers for delay in remittance of power tariff, it had been stern to defaulters among the commercial and industrial consumers, the Minister said.

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