Bhubaneswar: Odisha government has procured a record 67.57 lakh tonnes of paddy during this 2019-20 kharif and rabi seasons. Last year, the procurement by this time was 65.50 lakh tonnes.
The target for rai was 10 lakh tonnes. But, by now already 14.26 lakh tonnes of paddy, which is 32% more than the previous year, have been procured from the farmers. The rabi paddy procurement was 10.84 lakh tonnes by this time last year. The total rabi procurement was 13.93 lakh tonnes. The rabi paddy procurement this season would continue till 30th June 2020.
The State food supply and consumer welfare minister, Ranendra Pratap Swain, said the government this year carried out the procurement operation in a transparent way by using technology. He elaborated that the farmers were registered on line and were provided with the e-pass and e-tokens for sale of their paddy at mandis without any hassel.
Swain said that use of technology and e-pass and e-token system helped in involving more number of farmers, specially small and marginal farmers, in the MSP procurement process. He said in kharif 2019-20 total 9.56 lakh farmers have sold their paddy in comparison to 8.64 lakh farmers the last year kharif season. The participation of small and marginal farmers increased by 11 %. A total Rs9,676 crore was transferred into the accounts of farmers. Similarly, in rabi 2019-20 the number of farmers registered is 2.57 lakh as compared to 2.16 lakh in rabi 2018-19. The increase is over 20%.
