Punjab has set a target of government procurement of 185 lakh tonnes of paddy this year.

27-Sep-2024 06:39 PM

Ludhiana. The Union Food Ministry has set a target of procurement of 185 lakh tonnes of paddy in Punjab during the Kharif Marketing Season of 2024-25, on which an expenditure of Rs 41339.81 crore is estimated.

For this, Cash Credit Limit (CCL) has been approved to Punjab so that the price of paddy can be paid to the farmers on time.

It is worth mentioning that Punjab is the state that contributes the most paddy to the central pool. The Chief Minister of Punjab took stock of all the arrangements by holding a meeting with the officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Department of the state and also talked to the Union Food Minister and urged to speed up the pace of sending food grains out of the state's warehouses.

The Food Minister has assured that the storage problem will be resolved soon. The paddy production area in Punjab has increased by 40 thousand hectares from 31.80 lakh hectares last year to 32.20 lakh hectares this time, while the weather and monsoon conditions were also satisfactory.

As a result, a great production of paddy is expected there. But there is a shortage of space in the godowns / warehouses, due to which there is a serious challenge for safe storage of paddy purchased in the mandis.

A plan has been made to keep this paddy stock in the premises of rice mills, but the millers are opposing it.

A new marketing season for government procurement of paddy is starting from October 1 in Punjab, for which necessary preparations are being completed in all the major mandis.

In the initial phase, the pace of procurement is likely to be a bit slow, but the moisture content in paddy may remain high.