Other States - Bihar   

Paddy procurement in Bihar slow: Minister

Patna: Expressing displeasure at the “tardy” pace of paddy procurement in Bihar, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Food and Civil Supplies Akhilesh Prasad Singh on Tuesday said the state government was “indifferent” towards the process.

“The state (Bihar) government should play a pro-active role in the procurement of paddy to provide farmers their due. At present, the farmers are forced to sell their produce below the minimum support price due to the state’s apathy towards procurement,” Mr. Singh told reporters here on Tuesday.

Alleging that procurement was going on at a tardy pace, he said altogether 1.10 lakh tonnes of paddy have been procured by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), state government and its agencies against the target of 13 lakh tonnes.

The state was to procure 9 lakh tonnes and the FCI 4 lakh tonnes.

Out of this, the FCI has procured 80,000 tonnes of paddy from its 132 procurement centres across the state whereas the state government has made procurement of 30,000 tonnes from its 4,000 centres, Mr. Singh said.

Drawing a comparison, he said Punjab procured 120 lakh tonnes of paddy.

Out of this, 118 lakh tonnes was procured by the state and the rest by the FCI. Similarly, Haryana Government procured 116 lakh tonnes of the total 117 lakh tonnes.

Mr. Singh alleged that the farmers were not getting the bonus of Rs.50 per quintal as announced by the state government apart from the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs.900.- PTI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Paddy procurement in Bihar slow: Minister
Young man killed in accident
Teachers set textbooks afire in Bihar
Gautam Goswami dies of cancer

Copyright © 2009, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu