Shaky start to paddy procurement in Punjab: Delayed payments, just 9% purchase by govt.
The government has targeted to procure 31% of total paddy from Haryana and Punjab. It has targeted to procure 113 lakh tonnes of rice from Punjab and 44 lakh tonnes from Haryana during the kharif procurement season. Though 37,000 metric tonnes paddy (parmal non-Basmati) arrived in Punjab’s grain markets in the past two days, the Punjab government had procured merely 3,590 metric tonnes (9 per cent) till 27 Sep. Moreover, no farmers whose grains had been procured by government agencies were seen receiving payments because Cash Credit Limit (CCL) is yet to be sanctioned by the Centre. The government has advanced procurement of paddy by five days. The official date of paddy procurement had previously always been October 1, because majority paddy crop starts arriving in mandis only after October 9-10. Punjab government has already notified 4,030 mandis for this paddy procurement season. A total of 15,000 and 22,040 metric tonnes of paddy arrived in the mandis on Saturday and Sunday respectively. The procurement was done in seven districts — Amritsar, Ropar, Ludhiana, Tarn Taran, Jalandhar, Patiala and Gurdaspur.