Punjab and Haryana, which achieved record wheat production last year, have now exceeded last year?s procurement figures for paddy too.
Enquiries from different procurement agencies by Fe revealed paddy procurement in Punjab till Saturday was 127.03 lakh tonne exceeding the total procurement of 126.72 lakh tonne recorded last year. With this procurement figure, Punjab was all set to fast leap towards highest procurement recorded 142 lakh tonne recorded in the year 2004-05.
Similarly, in Haryana about 34 lakh tonne of paddy has arrived during the current kharif season so far which was a ?record? said official sources and more than 1.02 lakh tonne more than the previous year on this date. Out of the total paddy arrival, about 18 lakh tonne had been procured by government agencies at the minimum support price and the remaining about 16.03 lakh tonne had been purchased by the private millers and traders, which included 3.22 lakh tonne leviable and 12.4 lakh tonne non leviable paddy. Hafed had procured 7.36 lakh tonne of paddy, food and supplies department had procured 5.19 lakh tonne, Haryana Agro Industries Corporation 1.79 lakh tonne, HWC 67,151 tonne, FCI 8,119 tonne and Confed had purchased 2.34 lakh tonne of paddy. Kurukshetra was leading with the arrival of 6,67,219 tonne, followed by Karnal 5,57,371 tonne, Fatehabad 4,29,977 tonne, Kaithal 3,67,536 tonne, Ambala 3,11,472 tonne, Yamunanagar 2.34 lakh tonne, Jind 1.91 lakh tonne, Sirsa 1.55 lakh tonne, Panipat 1.32 lakh tonne, Faridabad 90,075 tonne, Sonipat 73,359 tonne, Panchkula 43,187 tonne, Hisar 35,577 tonne, Rohtak 11,095 tonne and Mewat 7,328 tonne of paddy.
Official sources in Punjab government said the state was hopeful of creating a new record in paddy procurement keeping in view bumper crop and late arrival of paddy in mandis this year.
Six government agencies and millers procured over 1,27,03,267 tonne of paddy in Punjab. The PUNGRAIN procured 34, 97,531 tonne of paddy (29.8%) whereas MARKFED procured 26,89,277 tonne (22.9%). PUNSUP procured 26,41,125 tonne (22.5%) whereas Punjab State Warehousing Corporation procured 14,58,811 tonne of paddy (12.4%) besides 12, 30, 104 tonne (10.5%) procured by Punjab Agro. The Central government agency FCI procured only 2,02,539 tonne of paddy (1.7%) against the target of 10% procurement given to it. The millers procured 9,83,553 tonne of paddy (7.7 %) by Saturday.
Ludhiana district was leading in procurement with 15,75,493 tonne followed by Sangrur district with 14,32,121 tonne and Ferozepur 12,01,959 tonne.
Till now, the six government agencies have paid over Rs 9,393.13 crore for paddy procured by agencies for current kharif marketing season. The spokesman said farmers of the state were 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 1,622 procurement centers throughout the state to ensure smooth procurement of paddy.