Paddy arrivals across Chhattisgarh is slowly picking up after the state government announced a bonus of Rs 50 per quintal over the minimum support price (MSP).
The farmers had sold about 220000 metric tonnes of paddy in the procurement centres after the bonus was announced last week. Before the announcement, only 124000 metric tonnes of paddy was procured over a period of one month.
The procurement of paddy at the minimum support price (MSP) for the kharif marketing season 2009-10 started in the state on October 12 and will continue till January 31, 2010. The state marketing federation has set up 1577 procurement centres across the state to purchase paddy. The poor arrival of paddy had put the authorities in a fix. The state government has set a target to procure 4 million tonnes of paddy this year.
The state government last week announced a bonus of Rs 50 per quintal for paddy purchased at the minimum support price (MSP). The announcement was is in addition to the bonus of Rs 50 announced by the union government recently.
With the bonus sops, farmers in Chhattisgarh will now stand to get aggregated bonus of Rs 100. Earlier, the state government had announced MSP of Rs 950 for a quintal of common variety paddy and Rs 980 for a quintal of grade-A paddy. Now, the farmers would get Rs 1050 for common variety and Rs 1080 for grade-A paddy as MSP for a quintal, the official said.
