Days before the deadline for paddy procurement in Bihar expires on February 21, the state’s cooperative as well as food and consumer protection departments clarified Saturday that the farmers wanting to sell their produce on minimum support price (MSP) through Primary Agriculture Credit Society (PACS) need to register only on the agriculture department’s website, said officials.
This year, there are 6,478 notified PACS in the state, as against 6,086 on February 13, 2020. The number of working PACS last year in February was 4,598, which has now risen to 6,179.
The clarification came after chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Friday that farmers only needed to register on the agriculture department’s portal to sell their paddy produce through PACS.
“I had said this earlier also, but despite this if farmers were registering at two places, action would be taken against the erring officials,” he had said.
There was no distress sale of paddy by farmers in Bihar this kharif season owing to several corrective measures, claimed a senior government official. “The target of paddy procurement has been increased from 30 to 45 lakh metric tonnes,” said Bandana Preyashi, secretary (cooperative department) on Saturday.
Compared to last year, there has been a 132.22% increase in registrations by farmers for procurement of paddy, she said. “This is the result of direct contact we established with them through various means, including kisan salahkar (farmers’ advisers). The window for paddy procurement has been reduced so that middlemen don’t take undue benefit,” she said.
In February last year, paddy procurement was 4.64 lakh metric tonnes, which has increased to 29.40 lakh metric tonnes till February 13 this year.
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Vinay Kumar, secretary, food and consumer protection department said Bihar had achieved self-sufficiency in paddy production this year. “We have stopped taking rice from Food Corporation of India (FCI) and started supplying beneficiaries in the state from our production only,” he said.
For the rabi crop, the window in the agriculture department portal would be opened early, he said.
Kumar said while the credit limit of PACS was 40% last year, it had been increased to 60% this year.
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