ROURKELA: Procurement of paddy will begin in drought-hit Sundargarh district on Wednesday. The district stares at an imminent loss of over one lakh tonnes of paddy due to the drought.
Sundargarh Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Jerome Kerketta informed that paddy procurement would start from Wednesday from Tangarpali block. He said managing directors of 44 Large And Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPSs) besides authorities of two Regional Cooperative Marketing Societies and one Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society have been asked to start procurement, which would be streamlined in four to five days. He said 37,000 farmers have registered for selling their paddy.
At least 119 paddy procurement centres (PPCs) will be opened across the district in the first phase to procure 1.3 lakh tonnes of paddy that would be milled in 14 rice mills to produce 88,700 tonnes of rice.
Of the total 2.09 lakh hectares (ha) of land where paddy was grown in the Kharif season, over 50 per cent of crops were damaged in 35,986 ha upland in Hemgir, Lefripara, Tangarpali, Sundargarh, Subdega, Balishankara, Bargaon and Kutra blocks that faced severe drought condition. Crop damage of 33 to 50 per cent over 31,554 ha of medium and low land was also reported. Farmers of the affected areas will get input subsidy from State Government.
Sundargarh Deputy Director of Agriculture (DDA) RN Satpathy said the normal average crop yield of the district is about 30 quintals per ha. He said unaffected pockets are likely to report an average of 31 to 32 quintals per ha while some pockets reported 30 to 45 quintals yield per ha. However, considering the crop loss of the moderate to severe drought hit areas the district’s overall average may come down to 25 to 26 quintals per ha.
While cutting of autumn paddy crops of Kharif season was completed long back, winter paddy crop cutting is nearing completion. The total output of autumn and winter crops is yet to be analysed to know the actual extent of the loss.