The district administration has decided to open about 187 paddy procurement centres in various parts of the district to procure the produce by providing the minimum support price fixed by the government.
Responding to the news item “Farmers resort to distress sale” published in these columns on Monday, the district officials have raised to the occasion and decided to open paddy procurement centre at every three kmdistance. It was decided that 187 procurement centres including 66 Indira kranthi Patham (IKP) centres, 116 Primary agricultural cooperative societies (PACS) and five District cooperative and marketing society (DCMS) would be opened for the purpose.
DD (marketing) V. Padmavathi said, all the government agencies would start procurement of produce from Tuesday onwards and the PACS would start procurement of paddy at the Karimnagar agricultural marketyard on Tuesday. Joint Collector G.V. Shyam Prasad Lal would formally inaugurate the procurement centre. She also asked the farmers to clean and dry their produce whether paddy, maize or cotton, in order to secure MSP.
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She said the government had fixed MSP of ₹1770 per quintal for A grade variety of paddy and ₹1750 per quintal for normal variety of paddy. The maize would procured at the rate of ₹1700 per quintal and cotton would be procured at the rate of ₹5450 per quintal for A grade variety and ₹5,150 per quintal for regular variety.