JAGATSINGHPUR: The Naharana Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS) of Balikuda block on Tuesday procured 46 quintals of paddy from a farmer who had allegedly failed to sell his produce at the procurement centre in 2022 due to the rejection of his token.
The procurement was done following the direction of the Orissa High Court (HC).
During 2021-22 kharif season, the district administration had opened 105 paddy procurement centres and around 39,276 farmers had registered online to sell their produce.
While the Civil Supplies department procured about 14 lakh quintal paddy from farmers, around 50,000 quintal were rejected due to invalid tokens. At least 4,767 farmers had failed to supply paddy at procurement centres and were forced to sell them to local traders at Rs 1,350 to Rs 1,400 against the MSP of Rs 1,868.
Challenging the rejection of tokens, Saroj Mohanty, a farmer, filed a petition in the HC in 2022. The court on September 8 directed the administration, Civil Supplies and Cooperation departments to procure Mohanty’s paddy within six weeks. In compliance to the HC order, PACS Naharana sent a letter to Mohanty on October 9 asking him to supply his paddy within 10 days from receipt of the letter.