The Cooperative Department has handed over its seed processing unit at Vengur to a private company under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode for processing quality seeds.
The private firm will pay ₹ 1 per kg to the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Society, where the unit is located, as user charges. Besides, it will process seeds raised by farmers. It will begin operations from Wednesday.
K.C. Ravichandran, Joint Registrar of Cooperatives, Tiruchi, said that the user charges had been fixed based on the rate of Agricultural Department. The unit, which was established at an estimate of ₹ 20 lakh under the Cooperative Research and Development Fund of the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Union, could process 800 kg of seeds an hour. It had an installed capacity to process 300 tonnes of seeds in a year.
He said the unit had been equipped with all machines needed for cleaning, grading and processing operations. It had facility to store the seed from receipt till it was supplied to farmers or customers. The unit would segregate and dispose of all undesired items.
As far as paddy seed was concerned, Mr. Ravichandran said that it contained contaminants of various kinds when it was brought to the plant straight from fields after it was harvested and threshed mechanically. Besides cleaning the seeds, the machine would retain only high quality seeds and dispose of other inert, noxious and deteriorated seeds.
He said that the unit, which was recently inaugurated, would be helpful to farmers of Vengur, Thiruverumbur, Kattur, Grand Anaicut, Thiruvanaikoil, Thiruvalarcholai, among others. Kuruvai and samba seasons were expected to be normal this year as the water level in the Mettur reservoir was raising steadily.
The unit was expected to serve the farmers to raise quality crop in the forthcoming seasons.
