UMERKOTE: Nabarangpur district administration opened the mandis on Monday to kick off paddy procurement for the 2024-25 kharif season. However, no purchase was reported from any of the 60 procurement centres on the first day.
To address previous issues in the procurement process and prevent distress sale, the administration devised detailed plans for smoother operations this year. With 42,411 farmers registered, the target for the first phase is to procure 13 lakh quintal paddy.
It was decided to buy paddy in 60 mandis this year. For this, the appointment of 60 nodal officers and 19 supervisors are in place. The minimum support price (MSP) for Grade-A paddy is 2,320 and 2,300 for common varieties along with input assistance of 800 per quintal.
Collector Subhankar Mohapatra said, in case of non-availability of sufficient fair average quality (FAQ) paddy in the market, the said paddy will be purchased after cleaning it by seed analyser and paddy cleaning machine while officers are directed to ensure that there is no fraud in the supply and weight of quality rice.
To prevent cross-border paddy influx, six cameras have been installed at strategic points along the Chhattisgarh border. Despite the preparedness, the opening day of the procurement process saw no paddy purchase across the district’s 60 mandis, raising concerns among farmers. The millers and farmers’ association expressed dissatisfaction over not being invited to Dabugaon mandi’s inauguration.
District civil supplies officer Ajay Mallick assured that tokens have been issued to farmers who will begin delivering their paddy to mandis in the coming days. “It was just the first day and the process will gain momentum shortly,” he said. Paddy is cultivated over 1.6 lakh hectare in Nabarangpur, yielding around 40 lakh quintal annually. The government has capped procurement at 19 quintal per acre for irrigated land and 13 quintal per acre for non-irrigated land.
However, following good rainfall this year, yields are expected to be significantly higher, 30 quintal per acre for irrigated land and 24 quintal for non-irrigated land.
Farmers, led by activist Khemraj Bagh, have urged the administration to raise the procurement target to 30 lakh quintal to prevent distress sale. In the previous years, the district procured 25 lakh quintal in 2022-23 and only 13 lakh quintal in 2023-24 due to insufficient rain.
Koraput opens mandis, purchase yet to start
Jeypore: The Koraput administration opened mandis for paddy procurement in Kamara village under Borigumma block on Wednesday. The state civil supplies department had issued tokens to farmers but no one turned up with the paddy stock on the day.
Sources said since the government is sticking to the FAQ standard paddy procurement through grain analysers this year to avoid katni chatani by millers, farmers are maintaining a wait and watch policy.
Around 20 millers present to receive the paddy but in vain no transaction was done. Cooperation and civil supplies officials informed that paddy purchase will gear up gradually. The state government has targeted to procure 21 lakh quintal paddy from the district.