Prepare action plan for paddy procurement at minimum support price: Sujatha

Eluru: Minister for Women and Child Welfare and Mining Peethala Sujatha said the district administration has set up 174 paddy procurement centres across the district and procured 7.35 lakh tonnes of paddy so far. The Minister inaugurated a paddy procurement centre at Devulapalli village in Jangareddigudem mandal on Sunday. The centre will be operated by DWCRA women.

Speaking on the occasion, she said in addition to the minimum support price (MSP) fixed by the government, the centres will offer transport charges and part of handling fare to farmers. The Minister said the payment will be credited into the bank account of the farmers within three working days from the day of sale.

She also asked the officials to prepare an advance action plan for procurement of paddy at MSP in the wake of the Centre’s decision to reduce levy from 75 per cent to 25 per cent. Maintaining that the entire transactions would be transparent, she said farmers must produce copies of their Aadhaar cards, pattadar passbooks or tenancy certificates issued by the VRO and the copies of bank passbooks at the procurement centres for enrolment.

ZPTC member Silam Ramachandra Rao, Mandal Parishad president K Manikyamba, MPDO Sridevi, Tahsildar G V V Satyanarayana and others were present.