Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in a letter on Wednesday sought the personal intervention of Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan to extend paddy procurement date from Tamil Nadu till September 30.
In a letter to Mr. Paswan, he said the Centre had fixed the paddy procurement period for Tamil Nadu in two seasons. Due to the rainfall pattern and unique agricultural cropping seasons, coupled with external factors like irrigation systems, the cropping pattern does not match with the period of procurement defined by the Union Food Ministry.
During the kuruvai season, which is specific to Tamil Nadu, the paddy is largely sown in the months of May, June and July and harvested from August to October.
In this context, it is pertinent to mention that the total area of paddy cultivation during kuruvai is around 2.67 lakh hectares and the area harvested till date is 0.349 lakh hectares only. The expected area of harvest and production of paddy for the month of September is 0.83 lakh hectares and 5.312 lakh metric tonnes respectively, he pointed out.
Tamil Nadu makes repeated requests every year to the Centre for extension till September as a special case. This year, the Union Food Ministry, however, has allowed extension up to August 2018, only in contrast to the extension orders given till September during the previous years, the Chief Minister said. He also asked Mr. Paswan’s intervention to extend the period of delivery of custom milled rice up to November 2018, as done in the previous years.
He hoped the Centre will consider implementing the new minimum support price from September 1. , 2018. itself, thereby increasing the farmer’s income, which will have a positive impact on the economy. The letter was handed over to Mr. Paswan by State Food Minister R. Kamaraj in New Delhi on Wednesday.