Paddy procurement crosses 100 lakh tonnes mark in Punjab

Chandigarh, Oct 27 (UNI) Paddy procurement crossed 100 lakh tonnes mark in Punjab as government agencies and private millers procured more than 102 lakh tonnes of paddy till last evening.

According to an official spokesman, out of the total procurement of Paddy in all the procurement centres of the state, government agencies had procured 83.37 lakh tonnes of paddy, which was 81.5 per cent of the total procurement, till date whereas millers had lifted remaining 18.91 lakh tonnes (18.5 per cent) of paddy.

Till yesterday, Pungrain had procured 20.93 lakh tonnes (25.1 per cent) whereas Markfed procured 19.75 lakh tonnes (23.7 per cent).

Punsup procured 21.23 lakh tonnes (25.5 per cent), PSWC procured 11.33 lakh tonnes (13.6 per cent) whereas PAIC was able to procure 9.06 lakh tonnes (10.9 per cent) of paddy. The Central government agency FCI had been able to procure 1.05 lakh tonnes, which was just 1.3 per cent of the procurement.

The spokesman said that Ludhiana district with 12.90 lakh tonnes of procurement was leading in procurement operations whereas Ferozepur district with 11.37 lakh tonnes of procurement was at second slot and Sangrur district with 11.21 lakh tonnes of procurement ranked at third position.

The spokesman added that the Punjab government had already made payment to the tune of Rs 5070.69 crore for paddy procured till October 25. Rs 5891.41 crore payments had been allocated to all agencies to ensure timely payment to the farmers.

The spokesman said that to ensure smooth procurement and timely payments to the farmers, the state government had already got a cash credit limit of Rs 7439 crores sanctioned from Reserve Bank of India for Kharif season 2007-08.

The state Government has set up 1544 procurement centres and activated its total machinery to ensure smooth procurement of paddy, the spokesman added.

UNI