Paddy procurement ends in Odisha, over two lakh farmers fail to sell stock

BHUBANESWAR: Having generated a lot of heat both inside and outside the Assembly over largescale irregularities, the State's paddy procurement process came to an end on March 31 with many farmers still waiting for the government to buy back their unsold stock.

The government has procured 62.93 lakh tonne of paddy from over 11.92 lakh farmers, which is 18 per cent (pc) more in comparison to last year. In the kharif marketing season (KMS) last year, the total paddy procurement was 53.31 lakh tonne.

Expecting a bumper harvest of paddy, the government had set an ambitious target to procure 71 lakh tonne of paddy during 2020-21 KMS. It had fixed a target to procure 48 lakh tonne of rice (equivalent to 71 lakh tonne of paddy) for 2020-21.

The State Cabinet had approved a target of 37 lakh tonne rice (equivalent to 54 lakh tonne paddy) for kharif season and 11 lakh tonne of rice (equivalent to 17 lakh tonne paddy) for rabi season. However, the government has exceeded its kharif target by nine lakh tonne. The rabi paddy procurement will start from May 1 and continue till June 30.

Though 14.97 lakh farmers have registered online for sale of their surplus paddy under minimum support price (MSP), a report of the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department said 11.92 lakh farmers sold their paddy till the deadline.

The government failed to explain why 2.05 lakh registered farmers couldn’t sell their produces. This points at the alleged irregularities in procurement process. The Food and Procurement Policy approved by the government said there was no bar on procurement of any higher quantum if more paddy comes to mandis from registered farmers.

The fact remains that more mandis (3,840) were opened during this kharif season than last year (3,543) and 2,881 primary agriculture cooperative societies were engaged for procurement against 2,853 last year. Despite cash crunch, the Odisha Civil Supplies Corporation borrowed money from open market to buy paddy which costs around Rs 11,756 crore.