Thanks to the paddy procurement centres established by the district administration, the farmers have benefited by the steps put in place by the government. They are able to get more than Minimum Support Price (MSP) being offered by the government from the traders.
The farmers are being offered more than Rs. 1,300 per quintal by the traders where as the MSP being extended by the government was Rs. 1,250 for general variety and Rs. 1,280 for grade-I paddy. Similarly, the preferred variety- BPT- is being procured by these centres at a price of Rs. 1,500 whereas the traders are offering between Rs. 1,800 and Rs. 1,900.
While officials attribute the reason for farmers getting more than MSP to establishment of procurement centres, the farmers’ union activists say that reduction of paddy production area was one of the main reasons for that. It is informed that millers from even Andhra area are visiting here to get the paddy for milling.
Meanwhile, the district administration has been repeating the successful experiment of ‘local rice for Public Distribution System (PDS) locally’. For this purpose, 8,950 metric tonnes of rice was already acquired and kept in godowns. The experiment was being repeated in Dubbak Assembly constituency where enough godown space was available.
They feel that this would reduce the transport cost to farmers in addition to providing a chance for milling local paddy with quality. To mill the paddy, about 50 rice-mills were identified and the local tahasildars were entrusted with the job of supervising the milling and maintaining the quality.
“This will make the job easy for PDS system. In addition to creating local jobs in the process, we are able to reduce the cost of transportation. This is being experimented across the State,’’ Joint Collector A. Shsarth told The Hindu.
