Govt agencies procure over 92 per cent of paddy

Chandigarh, Nov 12 (UNI) The six government agencies have procured 92.2 per cent of paddy this year against 82 per cent procured last year showing an increase of over 10.2 per cent, whereas the private millers have purchased only 7.8 per cent of total procurement against 18 per cent recorded last year.

According to an official spokesman, the market share of official agencies in the procurement is high due to bumper crop this year and steep decline of traders share is due to ban on export of non Basmati rice this year.

The six government agencies and millers procured over 128,85,694 tonnes of paddy till yesterday. PUNGRAIN maintained its lead in procurement by procuring 29.9 percent of total paddy i.e. 35,48,337 tonnes whereas MARKFED share was 23.0 per cent with procurement of 27,32,167 tonnes of paddy. PUNSUP procured 26,74,445 tonnes of paddy, Punjab State Warehousing Corporation procured 14,77,796 tonnes of paddy and Punjab Agro besides procured 12,47,530 tonnes of paddy.

The Central Government Agency FCI procured only 2,04,290 tonnes of paddy, which is just 1.7 per cent of total procurement while the millers procured 10,01,129 tonnes of paddy by Tuesday.

Ludhiana district is leading in paddy procurement by procuring 16 lakh tonnes of paddy so far. Ludhiana is followed by Sangrur with 14,63,216 tonnes of paddy, Ferozepur with 12,05,925 tonnes, Moga 11,34,957 tonnes and Patiala with 11,26,803 tonnes of paddy.

Electronic Clearing System (ECS) introduced by Punjab in Mandis of two districts this year and online monitoring system introduced all over state to make payments to the farmers proved a quite success as Rs 10130.75 crores were paid to farmers till Tuesday, the spokesman said.

Moreover, Bonus of Rs 50 per tonne announced by the Central Government is being credited in the bank accounts of farmer's directly. A credit cash limit of Rs 12623.62 crore sanctioned by the Reserve Bank of India for the procurement of paddy for the Kharif season by all the state agencies had been received by the state Finance Department.

UNI PS DB 1424