A record 70.3 lakh tonnes of paddy cultivated in the kharif this year was procured from 12.87 lakh farmers at minimum support price and almost bringing to an end a massive procurement process in villages that began in October.
Procurement of paddy is about 45% higher than what was purchased in the previous Kharif season, nearly 48.75 lakh tonnes. Officials of Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation told The Hindu that the entire paddy procured at purchases centres has been shifted to rice mills to so that the process of custom milling is taken up to deliver the rice to Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation.
Area of paddy
Based the on the area of paddy cultivation in the kharif season (61.95 lakh acres) it was estimated that the grain production would be about 103.95 lakh tonnes. It was planned to procure paddy by opening 6,962 purchase centres and of them 6,872 have been closed already after the completion of procurement. Of the total paddy purchased from over 12.87 lakh farmers during the 2021-22 Kharif Marketing Season, 61.58 lakh tonnes was of coarse (common) varieties and 8.72 lakh tonnes was of fine (Grade A) varieties. The paddy procured would be custom milled as 47.1 lakh tonnes rice at 67% out-turn per every 100 kg of paddy.
Explaining the details of the payments made to farmers against the paddy purchased from them, a senior executive involved in the exercise said the details of over 10.62 lakh farmers were entered in the online procurement management system (OPMS) and of them payment was made to nearly 10.42 lakh farmers till February 2. On the value of paddy procured, the official said it was ₹13,756.29 crore and of it the value of paddy entered into OPMS was ₹13,566.9 crore.
Against this, ₹1,3490.66 crore was released and the balance to be release as per OPMS value was ₹76.24 crore and that as per purchase value was ₹265.63 crore. Stating that delivery of custom milled rice (CMR) from the paddy procured in 2021-22 KMC to FCI and TSCSC has already commenced, the official said the millers have so far delivered 8.13 lakh tonnes of rice or over 17% of the targeted 47.1 lakh tonnes. According to TSCSC statistics, highest of 6,86,156 tonnes of paddy was procured in Nizamabad district followed by Kamareddy (4,83,669 tonnes) Nalgonda (4,54,383), Siddipet (3,99,315), Karimnagar (3,90,391), Medak (3,90,316), Jagitial (3,75,036), Suryapet (3,23,068) and Peddapalli (3,14,900), where the procurement is more than 3 lakh tonnes.
