Kolkata: The state Food and Supplies department has made arrangements for videography of the extraction of rice from paddy and paddy selling at the centralised procurement centre (CPCs) for bringing in more transparency in the process of paddy procurement that has started
from November 1.
“There will be GPS tracking of the vehicles on their way from CPCs to the rice mill and the sequence of en-try of paddy into the mills will be videographed. We have decided to ensure that an official in charge of a CPC is shuffled after every 15 days of work in a particular CPC, The mobile CPCs will also be tracked centrally,” state Food and Supplies minister Rathin Ghosh said.
The department for the first time this year has provided e-pos machines to all its purchase centres for pad-dy procurement.
“The e-pos machines will ensure only genuine farmers sell their paddy at the centres. The verification of a majority of the farmers has already been done. Those whose verification is still pending can do the same at the purchase centres,” a senior official said.
A farmer can sell a maximum of 90 metric tonnes of paddy depending upon the quantum of land owned by him. The Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy has been enhanced from Rs 2040 to Rs 2183 per quintal to safeguard the interest of small and marginal farmers.
The department will also provide an incentive of Rs 20 per quintal over and above the MSP to the farmers who will be selling their paddy in CPCs, mobile CPCs and DPCs. Hence, the farmer selling paddy at these centres will receive Rs 2203 per quintal.
This year arrangements have been made for 2000 purchase centres across the state and another 100 mo-bile CPCs. The department’s procurement target has been enhanced to 70 lakh metric tonnes. The target for this year was 55 lakh MT and the state managed to procure 54 lakh MT.