Director Agriculture reviews functioning of Paddy Procurement Centers

JAMMU : Director Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Jammu, K. K. Sharma today reviewed the functioning of Paddy Procurement Centers (Mandies) in Jammu, Kathua and Samba Districts here at a meeting with Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Mandi Labour Contractors (MLCs).

Joint Director (Marketing, PHM Infra & Farm Mechanization), A. S. Reen; Chief Agriculture officer Jammu, Arvind Baru; CAO Samba, Sanjay Verma; DM, FCI, Satya Prakesh; Manager QQ, FCI, Gopal Krishan; SDAO Marh, SDAO Akhnoor, Mandi Labour Contractors (MLCs) besides other concerned officers of the Department of Agriculture attended the meeting.

At the outset, the Director AP & FW informed that 20 Paddy Procurement Centres have been made functional in Jammu, Kathua and Samba to facilitate the farmers for hassle free sale of their produce. He said that the procurement centres have been fully digitalized this year by integration of Mandies with the E Procurement Portal specially developed for the UT of J&K and more than 1000 farmers have already been registered on the portal. The digitalization of the procurement process will promote greater transparency in procurement of farmers’ produce and further ensure payment as per MSP directly into their bank accounts within 72 hours, he added.

The Director sought suggestions from the participants regarding smooth functioning of the mandies and uniform Cleaning charges to be recovered from the farmers for their produce. He also instructed the concerned officers to ensure all sort of Infrastructural and logistic support at all these paddy procurement centres.

It was given out 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.