The Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation (TSCSC) has increased the price to be paid for used gunny sacks with fair price shop dealers from ₹18 to ₹21 per bag to ensure availability of timely and sufficient number of sacks for paddy procurement this season.
This was stated by the Corporation Chairman M. Srinivas Reddy here on Tuesday after board meeting of the organisation. The increased price would implemented with the retrospective effective from April 1. The meeting has also decided to release ₹54 crore to be paid to the FPS dealers as commission.
According to the Corporation officials, about 9 crore gunny bags would be required for paddy procurement this season. About 30 lakh gunny bags (used) would be available with the FPS dealers every month as they supply 1.75 lakh tonnes of subsidised rice to 87.54 lakh families. They used to sell the sacks to private contractors in the past but the State government had been purchasing them for the last few seasons for the procurement purpose.
On the paddy procurement, Mr. Srinivas Reddy stated that about 6.43 lakh tonnes of paddy worth ₹1,211 crore had been purchased from 77,000 farmers so far this season by opening 4,485 procurement centres against 6,798 planned for the season. He also instructed the officials to arrange paddy cleaners at every purchase centre so that the problem of chaff and wastage would not arise.
The Corporation Chairman told the officials not to stop paddy purchase in any centre till the produce with the farmers in the areas lasted. He also cautioned the millers against reducing the weight of paddy billed at purchase centres in the name of chaff or wastage.
