Punjab CM Channi seeks Centre's help for cash credit limit for Kharif procurement
Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Friday requested the Centre to help the state in getting authorization of Cash Credit Limit (CCL) for the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS), 2021-22 from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expeditiously.
Keeping in view the coming Kharif Season, the Chief Minister had detailed deliberations which lasted for one and a half hour with the Union Secretary, Food and Public Distribution Sudhanshu Pandey, who called on the former at his office this afternoon.
During the interaction with the Chief Minister who was accompanied by the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, the Union Secretary complimented the enormous contribution of Punjab in the national food pool in terms of both wheat and paddy.
Acceding to the request of Chief Minister to allow current procurement of paddy according to the previous norms, Pandey informed him that GoI has already taken a decision to procure paddy in the state as per the existing norms during the current paddy season starting from October 1, 2021. The Chief Minister informed the Union Secretary that for future also the revised norms should only be finalized by taking all the stakeholders including Punjab Government and Associations of farmers', arthiyas and mills into confidence as imposing these unilaterally would mean a great set back to Punjab.
Expecting a bumper paddy crop during the current season, the Chief Minister told the Secretary that Government of India has fixed a target for procurement of 170 LMT of paddy. However, as per state agriculture production estimates, 191 LMT of paddy is expected during the KMS 2021-22 for which the elaborate arrangements are already being made.
