Chandigarh, October 21: Six government agencies and millers procured over 68,86,337 tonnes of paddy on Monday .
An official spokesman today said that PUNGRAIN procured 17,43,623 tonnes of paddy (27.7%) whereas MARKFED procured 14,59,975 tonnes of paddy (23.2%). PUNSUP procured 14,40,234 tonnes of paddy (22.9%) whereas Punjab State Warehousing Corporation procured 8,15,604 tonnes of paddy (13.0%) besides 7,44,285 tonnes of paddy (11.8%) procured by Punjab Agro. The Central Government Agency FCI procured only 90356 tonnes of paddy (1.4%). The Millers procured 592260 tonnes of paddy (8.6 %) by Monday.
The mandis in Amritsar Division recorded 19,04,855 tonnes of paddy with Jalandhar recording maximum paddy by Monday to the tune of 4,88,780 tonnes. The mandis of Ferozepur division maintained their lead by recording 31,02,850 tonnes of paddy with maximum of 10,68,942 tonnes of paddy being recorded by Ferozepur district. Meanwhile procurement in the mandis Patiala division recorded 1878632 procurement of paddy with Patiala district recording maximum paddy to the tune of 6,01,066 tonnes.
The spokesman said that lifting of procured paddy from the mandis has started showing positive results with PUNGRAIN (102.7%), MARKFED (91%), PUNSUP (95.9%), PSWC (97.3%), PUNJAB AGRO (97.6%) and FCI (110.2%) showing substantial improvement.
Six government agencies have paid over Rs. 4186.14 crores for paddy procured by agencies during first 20 days of current Kharif Marketing Season. The spokesman said that farmers of the State are being made payment of paddy procured by the government agencies within 48 hours of lifting of paddy from the procurement centres.
The Punjab Food Supply had setup 1622 procurement centres throughout the state to ensure smooth procurement of paddy.