Government to Begin Rice Procurement Process in Tripura from June 15.
To provide fair prices for farmers' produce and make them economically stronger and self-reliant, the current state government first initiated the program of procuring rice directly from farmers at support prices in December 2018. Since then, this rice procurement activity has been regularly carried out during both Kharif and Rabi seasons. In the current Rabi season, the state government has decided to procure rice from farmers at support prices. This season, the rice procurement process will start from June 15 and will be formally launched at the Shantirbazar sub-division in South Tripura district. This program will continue until July 31. A total of 31 temporary rice procurement centers will be opened in various parts of the state. The target for this season is to procure a total of 16,000 metric tons of rice. Since 2018, the support prices for the procured rice have been directly credited to the respective bank accounts of the farmers. This was announced by the Minister of the Department of Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs, Sushanta Chowdhury, during a press conference on Monday.
During the press conference, the minister also highlighted two other important issues. He mentioned that the food department usually appoints transport contractors through tendering for transporting food grains from FCI to the state government food warehouses and for delivering food grains and other ration items to fair price shops. However, due to insufficient supply of trucks by the transport contractors, the food department often uses its own trucks for this purpose. Until now, the food department had 17 such trucks. Considering the increase in the number of consumers under the public distribution system in the state over the past few years, the food department has purchased 5 new trucks at a cost of approximately 1.86 crore rupees. These new trucks will be officially inaugurated tomorrow, June 11, at the Central Store located in AD Nagar, Agartala. Additionally, the minister announced that the Legal Metrology Organization under the food department currently has Secondary Standard Laboratory Buildings in 17 sub-divisions across the state. Recently, another Secondary Standard Laboratory Building has been completed in the Shantirbazar sub-division of South Tripura district. This new building will be officially inaugurated on June 15.