The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday urged the Centre to advance the procurement of paddy by one month, to September 1, 2022, instead of October 1, 2022 to safeguard the interest of farmers of Tamil Nadu.
The state government believes that as Tamil Nadu has experienced a favourable agricultural season this year, and if the Centre orders to procure paddy from September 1, that would immensely help farmers of Tamil Nadu to fetch remunerative price for paddy and realise the benefit of increased MSP for the kharif marketing season of 2022.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Stalin requested to issue suitable instructions to the department of agriculture and farmers welfare to advance the procurement of paddy by one month.
Normally, the paddy harvesting season, in late September or early October, would coincide with both south west and north east monsoon, leading to yield loss or massive crop damage due to inundation during cyclones. But, this year, due to the steps taken by the state government, farmers are confident of harvesting their Kuruvai paddy commencing from last week of August, 2022.
“The new MSP for kharif marketing season (KMS), 2022 would be applicable from October 1 onwards. Due to advance and timely initiatives taken by the government of Tamil Nadu, it is expected that Kuruvai paddy harvest would commence from the last week of August itself. I request that suitable instructions may kindly be issued to advance the procurement of paddy by one month, to September 1, 2022,” he said.
For the first time since independence, the Mettur reservoir has been opened for Kuruvai paddy cultivation on May 24, 2022, ahead of the conventional date of June 12. Due to the judicious use of irrigation water during the last paddy season, and due to beneficial rains, the storage position of Mettur reservoir is quite comfortable this year, he pointed out in the letter.
The state government had issued orders on April 8, 2022 itself, to take up desilting work of the main canals and sub-canals for a length of 4,964.11 km in Cauvery delta districts at an outlay of Rs 80 crore and sanctioned an agri input package worth Rs 61 crore to farmers of the region.
Quality seeds of high yielding paddy varieties and fertilisers have been mobilised in all the needy places and farmers have been advised to complete the transplantation of Kuruvai paddy before the end of June, itself.
