HYDERABAD: Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has requested Union minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution KV Thomas to increase the bonus of Rs 120 per quintal on the minimum support price for paddy. He told the Union minister that the present MSP for paddy which is `1,110 per quintal had to be hiked to make agriculture remunerative since the input costs and labour charges increased considerably.The Union minister assured the chief minister that he would take up the issue at the next cabinet meeting and also discuss the issue with prime minister Manmohan Singh and see that bonus on the MSP was increased.Thomas, after holding a review meeting with the chief minister Ministers and officials on Rabi procurement at the Secretariat on Monday, said the central government would take up a major initiative to modernise and mechanise the public distribution system, and embark on “end to end” computerisation of the system for better coordination and foodgrain movement.Direct online link will be established between the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns and the Public Distribution System (PDS) to track the movement of foodgrains and check misappropriation and irregularities by dealers and others.“Our main objective is to modernise the PDS so that subsidised foodgrains reach the designated people (under the proposed Food Security Act),” Thomas said.The details of these projects will be discussed at a meeting of states’ ministers of agriculture, food and finance to be held by the Centre in Delhi on February 8 and 9.Faced with huge stocks of rice, the state government wanted to speed up construction of additional foodgrain storage capacity— 25 lakh tonnes— in the next three years including, of which 8.2 lakh tonnes immediately.Thomas said the Centre would necessarily extend support for additional godowns including financial support from NABARD- RIDF. At present, the state is having a capacity to store 43 lakh tonnes, which includes the godown space of millers and private parties. Thomas said the Centre was encouraging states to digitise ration cards which enabled them to weed out over 2 crore bogus ration cards from the public distribution system, nearly 10 per cent of the 20 crore ration cards.Bogus ration cards and diversion of foodgrains have been the bane of the PDS.The chief minister said the state government was thinking of adopting foolproof online system for procurement of paddy from the Rabi season.The online link will be introduced in three districts on a pilot basis.“The main objective of the state government is to see that the MSP goes into the bank accounts of farmers, bypassing middlemen.’’ “As the government plans to enact a food security law in the next financial year, the food ministry and the railways are working on setting up a Food Movement Plan to finance faster movement of foodgrains from producing states to consuming ones.A special purpose vehicle (SPV) — will be set up to work towards establishment of dedicated corridors and procurement of trains and rakes for grain transportation,’’ the Union Minister said.The idea was to avoid delays in the movement of foodgrains from producing states to consuming ones due to long distances and lack of good transport facilities, he explained.Funds sanctioned for weaver loan waiverHYDERABAD: Chief minister Kiran Kuamr Reddy on Thursday accorded administrative sanction for the release of Rs 27.32 crore towards waiver of loans availed by weavers and district cooperative central banks.Of this money, `3.4 crore will go towards waiver of cash credit loans taken by primary weavers’ cooperative societies from DCCBs and `23.91 crore towards waiver of individual cash credit loans under the SCC, PMRY and RYS programmed. Loans outstanding as on March 31, 2010 for which applications were received are eligible for the scheme, an official press release said
Comments
0 comment