Paddy procurement picks up pace in Sundargarh district with over 1.15 lakh quintals lifted
ROURKELA: After a slow start, paddy procurement in Sundargarh district has started picking up pace with lifting of over 1.15 lakh quintal paddy till Tuesday afternoon.
Paddy purchase in the district officially commenced from December 20 with opening of paddy procurement centres (PPCs) at Kirei in Sundargarh sub-division, Khuntgaon of Bonai sub-division and Nuagaon in Panposh sub-division.
As of now, around 107 of the total 133 PPCs have started lifting paddy. The district has set a target to procure a total of 1,94,338 tonne paddy from 54,441 registered farmers through 133 PPCs.
Deputy registrar of cooperative societies (DRCS) US Das informed, till Tuesday afternoon 1,15,302 quintal had been procured by 107 PPCs from 2,752 farmers. “Bulk procurement has been made in the last few days. The remaining 26 PPCs are yet to begin the purchase process,” Das said adding, so far 780 farmers have received payments.
He said there has been no report of farmers facing harassment or difficulty in selling their stock and the procurement is going on smoothly. “All PPCs have been equipped with webcasting facility,” Das added.
In view of the government offering enhanced minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 3,100 per quintal, the administration is cautious of preventing illegal practices, especially fraudulent entry of paddy stocks from adjacent pockets of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to avail the higher MSP at the cost of the local farmers, Das said.
Administrative sources informed 18 border entry points along with all PPCs have been equipped with surveillance cameras, and district-level enforcement teams along with district, sub-division and block-level nodal officers tasked to monitor the entire process.
Sources said earlier farmers from various blocks had complained about crop damage or low yield due to moisture stress condition in the kharif crop season 2024, while several others from different gram panchayats of various blocks had demanded declaration of drought-like situation.
After preliminary survey, the district administration had declared crop damage on over 30,000 hectare. It had, however, not disclosed the extent of damage caused. It remains to be seen if the district in the kharif market season 2024 manages to achieve the target.