A central team comprising officials of the Department of Food and Public Distribution inspected the quality of paddy at various Direct Purchase Centres (DPCs) of Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) in Thanjavur district on Tuesday.
The visit came following a request from the State government to the Centre to increase the maximum limit on the moisture content in the paddy procured from farmers.
At present, paddy with a moisture content of up to 17% is being procured from farmers as per the Centre’s specifications.
However, with intermittent rain during the kuruvai paddy season, especially at the time of harvest, farmers of the delta region have been urging the government to relax the moisture content norm based on which the State government made the request to the Centre.
The farmers have been demanding that paddy with moisture content of up to 22% be procured.
Following this, the Centre deputed a team of officials from the Department of Food and Public Distribution.
The team led by M.Z. Khan, Deputy Director (Storage and Research), Quality Control Cell, Hyderabad, comprised P. Prabhakaran and C. Yunus, Technical Officers, (S&R), Quality Control Cell.
It inspected various direct purchase centres in the district including the DPC at Arasur near Thanjavur. Apart from checking the moisture content of the paddy, they also collected samples of the paddy for analysis.
In a brief interaction with reporters, Mr. Khan said the team would submit a report to the Union government soon based on which a decision would be taken by the Centre on the demand.
M.S. Sangeetha, Joint Managing Director, TNCSC, N. Uma Maheswari, Senior Regional Manager, TNCSC, Thanjavur, Collector Dinesh Ponraj Oliver and other officials accompanied the team that also visited the direct purchase centres at Madigai, Thennamanadu and Orathandu Pudur.
