In a first, state Food & Supplies dept sends rice to FCI in January; cheque payment scheme garners huge response

Kolkata: The state Food and Supplies department has already sent 30,000 metric tonne of rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and will soon be offering them another 1 lakh metric tonne. There has hardly been an instance when the rice has been sent to the FCI at the beginning of the year. It is usually during September – October every year when rice is sent to the FCI.

"The procurement of rice this year has been excellent. We have already procured 1.5 times of our January target which has given us the liberty to send rice to the FCI at such an early date. The FCI will be sending the produce to other states as per their requirement," a senior official of the state Food and Supplies department said.

The target for procurement till January was 15 lakh metric tonne and it has already gone over 23 lakh metric tonne. "We expect to touch 25 lakh metric tonne by the end of the month," the official added. It may be mentioned that last year the department had sent a total of 60,000 metric tonne of rice to the FCI. The department expects to send much more to the godowns this year.

The procurement of paddy had started from November 2018 and is expected to continue till July-August this year. The scheme of Dhan Din Cheque Nin (immediate payment against paddy through cheque) that was introduced under the instructions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from January 5 has evoked tremendous response among the farmers speeding up the procurement process. A farmer can sell a maximum of 45 quintals of paddy.

"We have already distributed 1.6 lakh cheques to the farmers. The procurement has been good throughout the state among which West Burdwan, Hooghly and Nadia deserve special mention," state Food and Supplies minister Jyotipriya Mallick said.

The minister himself has led raids to a number of godowns where rice was illegally stored and around 10,000 quintals have been seized following which around 381 persons have been arrested.

It may be mentioned that Mallick had written to all the MLAs in the state to conduct special camps for procurement of paddy from farmers in their respective areas.

"Not a single MLA from the Opposition party has responded to my letter which is a clear indication that they are least concerned about the welfare of the farmers," Mallick added.

The Chief Minister during a meeting at Nabanna on December 19 had instructed the state administration to hand over cheques immediately to farmers after the procurement to make the process hassle-free.

The government had done away with the RTGS mode of payment and introduced cheque payments from January 5.