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With the new government in place, paddy arrival in the societies is slowing picking up in Chhattisgarh.
Following the election and delay in harvest, the paddy arrival was severely affected initially. Till November 22, only 300,000 metric tonnes of paddy had arrived in the societies set up by the state-run Chhattisgarh Marketing Federation (MARKFED) to purchase paddy from the farmers at Minimum Support Price (MSP).
The MARFED had set up 1,333 primary cooperative societies constituted at the village level to purchase paddy from the farmers. In all, 1970 procurement centres had been set up across the state. The farmers this year would be entitled to get Rs 1345 for a quintal A-grade paddy while those selling common grade would get Rs 1,310 for a quintal.
“As of now, about 2.3 million tonnes of paddy had arrived in the societies,” federation officials said. The state government had spent Rs 305 crore for purchasing paddy till now, they said, adding that the paddy arrival was slowly picking up across the state.
The state government had set a target to procure 7.2 Million Tonnes (MT) of paddy from the farmers in the kharif marketing season 2013-14. The paddy procurement would continue till February 15. In the last marketing season, the state government had procured 7.1 MT of paddy, spending about Rs 11,000 crore that included a bonus of Rs 270 behind a quintal.
The officials said the state government had announced a bonus of Rs 300 for a quintal of paddy that had also given momentum to the paddy arrival in the societies.
