Paddy procurement crosses 119 lakh tonnes mark in Punjab

Chandigarh, Nov 3 (UNI) Government agencies and private millers procured more than 119 lakh tonnes of paddy in Punjab till last evening.

According to an official spokesman, out of the total procurement of 119.01 lakh tonnes of paddy in all the procurement centres of the state, government agencies had procured 97.73 lakh tonnes of paddy, which was 82.1 per cent of the total procurement, whereas millers had lifted 21.27 lakh tonnes (17.9 per cent) of paddy.

Among the state government agencies, Pungrain had procured 24.96 lakh tonnes (25.5 per cent) whereas Markfed procured 23.06 lakh tonnes (23.6 per cent). Punsup procured 24.75 lakh tonnes (25.3 per cent), PSWC procured 13.02 lakh tonnes (13.3 per cent) whereas PAIC was able to procure 10.65 lakh tonnes (10.9 per cent) of paddy. The Central government agency FCI had been able to procure 1.26 lakh tonnes (1.3 per cent).

The spokesman said that Ludhiana district with 15.77 lakh tonnes of procurement was leading in procurement operations whereas Sangrur district with 14.69 lakh tonnes of procurement was at second slot and Patiala district with 12.48 lakh tonnes of procurement ranked at third position.

The spokesman added that the state government had already made payment to the tune of Rs 6597.49 crore for paddy procured till November 1. Payments worth Rs 7301.70 crore had been allocated to all agencies to ensure timely payment to the farmers. The state government had already issued instructions to make payment to the farmers within 72 hours of lifting paddy.

UNI