 "Branded basmati sales to touch 2.9 mt")
Chhattisgarh government had set a target to procure 6.5 million tonnes (MT) of paddy during the kharif marketing season 2016-17.
The procurement in the state would start from November 15 and continue till January 31, 2017. The cap of procuring 15 quintal of paddy per acre would continue in the season. The state-run Chhattisgarh Marketing Federation (MarkFed) would be the nodal agency for the procurement.
“We would be requiring Rs 9,685 crore for procuring paddy from the farmers at minimum support price... That would be arranged through borrowings,” MarkFed Chairman Radhekrishna Gupta told Business Standard. The short-term loan would be taken from different banks through National Cooperative Development Corporation, he added.
The state government had set a target to produce 8.68 MT of foodgrain this year, of which 7.6 MT would be paddy. A target had been set to take paddy crop in 3.6 MT area. In the kharif marketing season 2015-16, over 5.9 MT of paddy was procured by the MarkFed at a cost of over Rs 8,000 crore.
The cap on procurement, which had been limited to 15 quintal per acre, had reduced the volume in Chhattisgarh — which had been among the top ten rice growing states in the country. In the kharif marketing season 2014-15, over 8 MT of paddy was procured in the state.
The Centre has set a target to procure 33 MT of rice from farmers in the 2016-17 kharif marketing season, up from the previous year’s target of 30 MT and actual procurement of 30.92 MT.
Target for Punjab has been kept at 9.4 MT, followed by Chhattisgarh (3.5 MT). The other states include Uttar Pradesh (3.35 MT), Haryana and Andhra Pradesh (2.9 MT each), Odisha (2.4 MT) and Bihar (2 MT), West Bengal (1.7 MT), Telangana (1.5 MT) and Tamil Nadu (1 MT).
