In UP, paddy will be purchased first from these farmers, purchase will start from October 1; Read the details of your district

Small and medium farmers will be given priority in the purchase of paddy starting from October 1 for the current financial year. Paddy will be purchased on priority basis from such farmers whose yield is 60 quintals or less. Special provision has been made in this regard in the paddy procurement policy issued for Kharif marketing year 2024-25. On Wednesday, the Food and Logistics Department has issued a government order regarding the paddy procurement policy.

The minimum support price for normal paddy has been increased by Rs 117 as compared to last year and the rate has been fixed at Rs 2300 per quintal. At the same time, the support price of grade-A paddy will be Rs 2320 per quintal. In the current financial year, a target of purchasing 70 lakh tonnes of paddy has been set through four thousand procurement centers. However, the number of procurement centers and the target can also be reduced or increased on the instructions of the Food and Logistics Commissioner.

Farmers Producer Organization (FPO) and Farmers Producer Company (FPS) have also been given conditional permission to purchase paddy, but they will have to buy only by being associated with the Mandi Parishad. Only FPOs and FPSs that are one year old and have a working capital of Rs 50 lakh will be allowed to purchase.

Paddy will be purchased from October 1-24 to January 31, 2025 in Meerut, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Bareilly, Agra, Aligarh, Jhansi and Hardoi, Lakhimpur and Sitapur districts of Lucknow division in western Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, Chitrakoot, Kanpur, Ayodhya, Devipatan, Basti, Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, Varanasi, Mirzapur, Prayagraj of eastern Uttar Pradesh as well as Lucknow, Rae Bareli and Unnao districts of Lucknow division will be purchased from November 1-24 to February 28, 2025.

Other important points

• Purchasing centers will be set up at such a place where there is a good inflow of paddy and farmers do not have to travel long distances for sale.

• Employees of procurement agencies who are guilty of embezzlement in the past years or against whom FIRs are registered will be kept away from paddy procurement.

• The name of the centre, name of the agency, MSP, name and mobile number of the centre in-charge, details of the grievance redressal system and the toll free number 18001800150 issued for complaints will be displayed through banners at the procurement centres.

• The payment for the sold crop will be made to the farmers in their Aadhaar linked bank account. Paddy will be purchased only from farmers registered on fcs.up.gov.in.

• If the paddy is not as per the standard, farmers will be able to get it cleaned by paying the workers at the rate of Rs 20 per quintal.

• All procurement agencies will ensure payment of the price of paddy purchase in the farmers' account within 48 hours.

• The vehicles used for transporting paddy and rice will be mapped on the e-procurement portal. Only GPS equipped vehicles will be used for transporting paddy.

• Rice mills will get an incentive of Rs 35 per quintal if they dispatch the threshed paddy within 15 days and Rs 30 per quintal if they dispatch it within 15-25 days.