RAIPUR : Cited as the rice bowl of the country, Chhattisgarh is on its way to set a new record of paddy procurement at support price in the current kharif marketing season. The state has procured paddy weighing 127 lakh metric tons (LMT), the highest so far.It is a huge achievement given that the state was carved out from Madhya Pradesh in November 2000. Back then, despite plentiful paddy production, farmers couldn’t get suitable returns in the absence of an effective system. In the year 2001, only 4.63 LMT was procured out of the state’s total recorded production of around 23 LMT. As the bumper procurement continues, the new BJP government hopes the estimated target of 130 LMT will be realised easily. The procurement is carried out through cooperative societies and will continue till January 31.Paddy procurement has always remained a major political issue in the state. Ahead of the assembly polls, key rivals tried outdo each other in offering the best returns as the minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers.With every passing year, the strength of paddy growers and the registered sown paddy area have substantially gone up. There are at present 26.85 lakh registered farmers with the addition of 2.65 lakh new growers this year. The total paddy sown area on record is 33.48 lakh hectares.The previous record procurement was 107.53 LMT during the Congress regime, symbolising the growth of the agrarian community as the beneficiaries in the state. Along with the procurement, the government has also released payments of over `27,504 crore to the paddy farmers.The previous government under its Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana purchased paddy at `2,500 per quintal. The BJP government has declared MSP at `31,00 per quintal for paddy and increased the procurement limit cap from the previous year 15 quintal per acre to 21 quintal per acre.
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