Jammu: Principal Secretary Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Navin Kumar Choudhary, today visited Paddy Procurement Centre set up at Gajansoo (Marh) to inspect the preparedness of arrangements for successful running of the Mandis.
In order to save the farmers from distress sale of their produce, 20 Paddy Procurement Centres/Mandis are being inaugurated virtually on Saturday by Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha.
Meanwhile, those present on the occasion included BDC Chairman, Surinder Kumar, DDC, Marh, Balbir Lal, DGM FCI, P. Lokhanadha, Joint Director Agriculture (Marketing), S. A. S. Reen, Chief Agriculture Officer Jammu, Arvind Baru, AGM FCI, Amit Kesar, AGM(QQ) FCI, Himashu Sekhar, SDAO Marh, Ashwani Kunar Jojra, PRI members and prominent farmers of the area.
Procurement Centers are established every year by Food Corporation of India (FCI) in collaboration with Agriculture Department to facilitate the farmers in hassle free sale of their produce.
Principal Secretary on the occasion informed that this year procurement centres have been opened 20 days earlier than previous years and all procurement for Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2021-22 will be made through E- Procurement Portal specially developed for J&K UT. “Process of registration of farmers on the said portal is already in progress and this initiative will help in hassle free procurement of Kharif produce from the farmers and facilitate transparency in direct money transfer in the accounts of concerned farmers there by eliminating the role of middle man,” he added.
Principal Secretary instructed the concerned officers to ensure that farmers get minimum support price for paddy as notified by the GOI. He also stressed upon the officials to ensure the speedy payment to the farmers of their paddy produce through Direct Bank Transfer (DBT) within 72 Hours.
Earlier, Director AP & FW, Jammu, K. K. Sharma informed that 10 procurement centers in Jammu district, 09 in Kathua and 1 procurement center (Mandis) in Samba are being set up this year to facilitate the farmers.
He further said that Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs. 1960/- per quintal for Grade A and Rs. 1940/- per quintal for Common Grade Paddy has been fixed this year by GOI. All sorts of infrastructural and logistic support has been kept intact at all these paddy procurement centres.
Ex MLA/Former Minister, Sukhnandan Choudhary on the occasion raised the issue of likely shortage of Gunny bags for which Principal Secretary directed the FCI to ensure timely and ample supply of the same.
