Govt sets up 18 paddy procurement centres in Jammu: Navin

Jammu: Principal Secretary Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare Department, Navin Kumar Choudhary, Wednesday said government has established 18 procurement centres in the current kharief marketing season to facilitate procurement of paddy at the minimum support price in districts of Jammu, Kathua and Samba respectively.
He was speaking at a meeting convened by him here at Civil Secretariat Jammu.
Deputy Commissioners of Samba and Kathua districts attended the meeting through Virtual Mode along with their Chief Agriculture Officers while ADC Jammu Gansham Singh, Deputy General Manager Food Corporation of India (FCI) Sidhart along with representatives participated in the meeting from here.
While assuring full support to Food Corporation of India, Navin said timely operationalization of procurement centres will ensure that the farmers are not compelled to sell their produce below the minimum support price fixed during current season. He laid emphasis on FCI officials to make sure that payments are released immediately after procurement of Paddy from the farmers preferably within 72 hours through Direct Bank Transfer (DBT) mode.
The centres have been established at Bishnah/ RS Pura, Sohanjana, Gajansoo, Channu Chak, Pargwal, Gurha Manasa, Marh, Bhadrore and Jourian-1 (Jammu District), Bajwal, Jakhbar, Marheen, Sanjhi Morh-11, Chann Arorian, Palli Morh, Nagri Parole and Dungara/Mandli (Kathua District), Kesso Manasan ( Samba District) respectively. The provision of requisite infrastructure like winnowing fan, weighing machines, hand stitching machine, tarpaulins, at these locations has also been made.
Among others Joint Director Agriculture Jammu, B K Chandan, Chief Agriculture Officer Jammu, A S Reen, Agri Economist, KK Sharma and Technical Officer, Vijay Upadhay were present in the meeting.