Punjab procures over 115 lakh tonne of paddy this kharif season

Punjab has procured over 115 lakh tonne of paddy this kharif season, food and supplies officials said on Monday.

Government agencies and private millers have procured 11,592,262 tonnes of paddy in Punjab till Sunday evening.

Over 99 per cent of the paddy has been procured by government agencies while the remaining has been procured by private millers.

An official spokesman for the Punjab government said out of the total procurement from various procurement centres in the state, government agencies procured 11,511,817 tonnes of paddy while 80,445 tonnes has been procured by millers.

The 100 lakh tonne procurement mark was crossed on Nov 1.

The Punjab government has made arrangements for a bumper procurement of 200 lakh tonne of paddy this season. In 2017-18, a total of 179.34 lakh tonne of paddy was procured.

Paddy procurement started in the agrarian state on October 1, but the bulk of the stocks started coming after October 10.

The Centre sanctioned a Cash Credit Limit (CCL) amount of Rs 29,695.40 crores for the procurement of paddy in the kharif marketing season 2018-19. The Punjab government had demanded Rs 40,300 crore.