Balurghat: Food department starts paddy procurement

Balurghat: District Food and Supplies department is procuring paddy from the farmers directly at a higher rate, fixed by the state government through Centralised Procurement Centres (CPCs) covering all eight blocks of South Dinajpur.

District controller of Food and Supplies department Jayanta Roy said the government had declared the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of paddy at Rs 1,888 per quintal in the state. "The state government has taken a decision to purchase paddy directly from the farmers at a higher

rate than the normal market price for the benefit of the farmers," he said.

The decision was taken after a meeting of the administrative officials and the senior officials of the district Food and Supplies department.

According to Roy, the district Food and Supplies department has started procuring paddy through 8 CPCs in all the blocks, including Balurghat, Gangarampur, Tapan, Kushmandi, Hili, Kumarganj, Harirampur

and Bangshihari from November 23.

"Four additional CPCs will be made operational soon in Balurghat, Tapan, Kumarganj and Gangarampur. We have registered 31,161 farmers officially in the district while 1,170 of them have already got the chance to sell their crop. A total number of 845 famers have sold paddy till date. We have already procured 842.312 metric tonne paddy from the farmers for Rs 1,59,02,850," he said.

Roy said the ongoing paddy procurement process is being conducted smoothly.

"Custom Milled Rice agencies have been requested to take the initiative towards purchase through CPCs (by Societies and Self Help Groups) at the

earliest. Overall farmers turn out is about 70 per cent as some are yet to complete harvesting," he added.