100 LMT paddy bought: Minister

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 29

The arrival of paddy in state mandis is at its peak. In merely four weeks of onset of procurement season, over 105 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) paddy has arrived in mandis so far, of which nearly 104 LMT paddy has already been procured.

Disclosing this today, Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak said timely purchase, payment and lifting was going on in mandis. All arrangements of bardana, mandi labour and transportation are adequate across the state, he said.

He also said he had toured mandis of almost every district in the last four weeks and all stakeholders had expressed satisfaction over the procurement arrangements during his visits.

As of now, the state mandis are witnessing arrival of nearly 7.5 LMT of paddy in a day, and almost all paddy arriving in a day gets purchased by the end of that day itself. As of today, less than 1 LMT has remained unpurchased across the state, which he said, clearly showed that in many mandis paddy is being cleaned and purchased on the date of arrival itself.

Giving details of the MSP payments, he said nearly Rs 15,400 crore had already been released directly into the accounts of the farmers and another Rs 2,000 crore had been approved for payment and would be released once the banks open on Monday.

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