Team News Riveting
Raipur, October 10
Chhattisgarh government has decided to start paddy procurement for the Kharif marketing year 2025-26 from November 15.
The procurement will continue till January 31, 2026. Over 2.5 million farmers will be the beneficiaries even as they will get Rs 3100 for a quintal of paddy procured. The state government has put a cap of 21 quintals per acre.
The proposal was approved in the state cabinet meeting held Friday. The meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai.
A state government spokesperson said vigilant system would be in place to prevent diversion and recycling of paddy and strong administrative framework for procurement of paddy. Timely payments (within 6 to 7 days) will be made to farmers with greater transparency.
Online token arrangement will be done through Token Tumhar Hand mobile app. Farmers will get rid of long queues in societies. To promote transparency in paddy procurement, farmer registration has been made mandatory this year through e-KYC, Government of India Ministry of Agriculture’s Agristech portal, so that farmers can be correctly identified and duplication/repetition is avoided. Registration can be done till October 31, 2025.
Through Digital Crop Survey 2.3 million hectares of land area has been surveyed as a result of which online determination of paddy area has been ensured digitally. The data of digital crop survey and manual Girdavari are being read in Gram Sabha from 02 October in 20,000 villages of the state.
The spokesperson said biometric based paddy procurement should be done to ensure procurement of paddy from genuine farmers. The 2739 primary cooperative committees have been instructed to make proper arrangements to procure paddy through procurement centres.
A target of 7.3 million tonnes of rice in central pool for Kharif year 2025-26 has been given by Food Department of Government of India.
For the first time, Integrated Command and Control Center has been established in the Markfed office to stop the recycling of paddy in the state and ensure a better monitoring system. Control rooms will also be set up in the districts.
It has been decided by the collector to make the administrative officers in charge of the procurement centers for better and easier arrangements in the paddy procurement centres, the spokesperson said, adding that instructions have been given to form a special checking team at the district level to stop the arrival of paddy from the procurement centers from the bordering states.
Instructions have been given to ensure thriftiness under the transportation system of paddy and to carry out physical verification of paddy picking and transportation.
