The Bengal government could so far meet about 24 per cent of its annual target of procuring 68 lakh tonnes of paddy directly from
farmers although the harvesting of kharif (monsoon) crop was completed about three weeks ago.

Sources in the food and supplies department said 15.51 lakh tonnes of paddy could be procured from the farmers to date.

The progress was considered unsatisfactory given that the state produces about 110 lakh tonnes of paddy in the kharif season. The annual paddy production in Bengal is 160 lakh tonnes.

“As we produce maximum paddy in the kharif season, we should have procured more paddy by now. If we can’t buy at least 60 per cent of the target by December end, we would face trouble to meet the target,” said a senior official.

The state usually depends on heavy procurement soon after the harvesting of the kharif crop as small and marginal farmers cannot keep the produce for a longer period.

“If we can’t buy paddy from the small and marginal farmers, who make up 85 per cent of the 72 lakh farmers in the state, immediately after the harvesting, they would
be forced to sell their produce to traders in the open market. In that case, the state
would not be able to run its cheap grain scheme and the farmers would not avail the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce,” said another official.

Sources cited many reasons for the cultivators’ lack of interest in selling their produce to the government.

“First, the state did not give enough bonus over and above the MSP announced by the Centre and the Bengal government did not set up enough camps to procure paddy from the farmers. If there are not enough camps, farmers would have to wait for long to sell their produce to the government,” said a source.

An official explained that the farmers were getting ₹2,200 for a quintal of paddy in the open market while the government was offering ₹2,320, which includes a bonus of ₹20 announced by the state.

As the farmers needed to travel a long way to the procurement centres and had to wait for a few weeks to sell their produce after registering with the government, they preferred the local traders to buy the paddy, said sources.

The situation could have been different had the government offered a handsome bonus over and above the MSP announced by the Centre.

“If there was a handsome difference, say about ₹300 to ₹400 a quintal between
the MSP and the open market rate, the farmers would have preferred to sell their produce to the government,” said an official.

Another problem that the government should look into is the waiting time of the farmers to sell their produce to the government, feel officials.

Nowadays, the farmers need to wait for a few weeks to sell their produce to the government. Many small farmers cannot wait for a long time as they reinvest the amount they get by selling their kharif produce in the rabi (season), which has already started.

“The state has only 620 centralised procurement centres and 181 mobile procurement centres. This is not enough to cater for 72 lakh farmers...,” said a source.

The government set a target to increase the number of registered cultivators to
at least 25 lakh. So far, 18 lakh farmers have registered to sell their paddy to the
government.