Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government Monday set a target to procure 55 lakh tonnes of paddy(about 37 lakh tonnes of rice) for the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2018-19. The paddy will be procured as per the MSP (Rs 1750 crore per quintal for common variety and Rs 1770 per quintal for Grade-A variety). In 2017-18, the paddy procurement was 49.06 lakh tonnes which is about 33.21 lakh tonnes in both Kharif and Rabi seasons.
The state cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, also decided that the farmers will receive the payments for their paddy within 3 days and the amount would be transferred to their bank acounts between 24 and 72 hours.
The paddy will be procured from farmers registered in the online portal of Food Supply and Consumer Welfare department. Sources said while Kharif crop will be procured from November 2018 to April 2019, Rabi crop will be procured from May to June 2019.
The Cabinet also approved a budgetary allocation of Rs 1250 crore fund towards Ama Gaon Ama Vikas programme for the year 2018-19.
Sources said ceiling limit for each project will cost between Rs 1 and Rs 10 lakh and be executed by Panchayat Samiti departmentally. The district Collector will supervise and monitor the work under the scheme.
