Over 12,000 gunny bags arrive in US Nagar, paddy farmers relieved

RUDRAPUR: In a relief to paddy farmers who were being forced to sell their crop below the minimum support price (MSP) to private dealers, the paddy procurement centres at Udham Singh Nagar district, which have been reeling under the shortage of gunny bags, have received 12,500 sacks on Wednesday.
A day after TOI reported that only 1,710.8 metric tonnes of paddy has been purchased in the past 17 days due to shortage of gunny bags, 12,500 bags have been sent to the 86 purchase centres of the district by the marketing wing of the food and civil supplies department.More bags will be provided in the next few days.
Talking to TOI, the district in charge of Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation (UCF) Veer Singh said that the Regional Food Controller (RFC) was approached many times regarding the shortage of gunny bags at the purchase centres but it was only on Wednesday that the bags were provided.
When contacted, RFC of the region, Vishnu Dhanik, said that the orders for the gunny bags had been made well in time before the paddy purchase season. "The gunny bags are made of jute and only companies in Kolkata manufacture these gunny bags. Since they have orders from all across the country, sometimes there is a delay in the supply. The supply has now been received and we have enough bags to meet our purchase target of 45,000 metric tonnes of paddy,” Dhanik said.
"It was the fault of the manufacturer which led to the delay in delivery of gunny bags. The paddy purchase will not be hampered any more in the district,” he said.
The farmers in the district were a relieved lot. “I was trying to sell my produce for the past three days but due to shortage of gunny bags, authorities kept me waiting. Now, today after this problem was resolved I was able to sell my crop,” said Harbir Singh, a farmer from Rudrapur.
Nodal officer for the paddy procurement and additional district magistrate of US Nagar, Ravneet Cheema said that she had earlier raised the issue with the district magistrate. Cheema said that she would work to bridge the gap between the UCF and the cooperative department, which is responsible for the purchase of paddy, and make sure that no farmer suffers financial loss.