Food Minister R. Kamaraj on Saturday said that token system was not being adopted for procurement of paddy at direct purchase centres (DPCs) in delta districts.
The remark came when reporters brought the attention of the Minister, who was at Kuruvadipatti DPC, to a complaint that adoption of the system delayed the procurement process.
Stating that such system was not implemented in delta districts, where 826 DPCs had been opened for procurement of kuruvai paddy from farmers, Mr. Kamaraj added that additional centres would be opened if needed.
In order to expedite the process, the government had instructed Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation to increase the number of bags of procurement in a day at a DPC from 800 to 1,000 whenever the inflow of grains was high. As on date, the Corporation had procured 2.10 lakh tonnes of kuruvai paddy through 876 DPCs opened in the State.
Sufficient number of tarpaulin sheets had been made available at all DPCs to protect the procured paddy from rain and infrastructure have been created to ensure safe storage. The total storage capacity had been increased to 23 lakh metric tonnes from 11 metric tonnes in 2011, he added.
