AGARTALA, Dec 2: The Tripura government will procure 40,000
MT of paddy from farmers with a minimum support price of Rs
21.83 per kg for the ongoing season, a minister said on
Tuesday.
He said paddy will be procured in all 49 centres across districts
and the process will commence on December 11 and continue
till January 31.
“Like previous years, this time, 40,000 MT of paddy will be
procured from farmers with a minimum support price of Rs
21.83 per kg,” Food and Civil Supplies Minister Sushanta
Chowdhury said during a press conference here.
He appealed to farmers to sell their paddy to the designated
centres and avail of the minimum support price.
“The procurement will further boost the socio-economic
condition of farmers. It will be in addition to the flagship
programme of PM Kisan under which each farmer receives Rs
6,000 annually in three phases,” he said, adding that the
northeastern state has 4.71 lakh farmers with an average three
‘kani’ land holding capacity.
Agriculture minister Ratan Lal Nath said his department held a
meeting with officials of food & civil supplies at the civil
secretariat here to jointly finalise the paddy procurement
process.
Terming that the paddy procurement was a historic decision of
the BJP-IPFT government, Nath said, “The state has procured a
total of 1, 79,219 MT of paddy since 2018 and altogether
91,377 farmers got a total revenue of Rs 342.34 crore. It has
changed the socio-economic condition of the farmers of our
state,” he said.
The agriculture department has already sought help from the
Indian Council of Agricultural Research on how to reduce the
gap between paddy production and demand.
“Now, the state has a gap of 19 per cent between paddy
production and demand, which is the lowest among the
northeastern states.
“This gap is 51 per cent each in Arunachal Pradesh and
Mizoram, 41 per cent each in Assam and Manipur, 32 per cent
in Meghalaya and 49 per cent in Sikkim,” he added. (PTI)
