Collectors told to notify cotton procurement centres immediately after completion of CCI bids process

HYDERABAD

Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao asked the Marketing Department officials to inform the ginning mills that will emerge as successful bidders in the tenders for the purchase of cotton, so that the procurement of the product can be started as soon as possible.

In the virtual review meeting on cotton procurement held on Sunday, the Minister said that a total of 328 ginning mills participated in the tenders invited by the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) for procurement and the tenders were floated on October 10 to complete the technical tender process by October 11.

To expedite the process, he instructed the District Collectors to inform the cotton gin factories that will emerge as bidders for the tender. He suggested farmers to register their names along with their mobile numbers in CCI’s “Kapas Kisan” application to sell cotton at minimum support price.

The minister asked the authorities to allow farmers to log in to the app based on their Aadhaar number and the OTP generated through them if their mobile number is not available. Farmers not included in the CCI database should also be allowed to re-register.

Letter to Union Minister

He sent a letter to Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, requesting removal of limit for purchasing 25% of total production of sesame, bengalgram, groundnut, soyabean, greengram and others under price support scheme at MSP and also inclusion of maize and jowar under PSS.

In another review meeting held on Saturday, Civil Supplies Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy stated that the Civil Supplies Corporation plans to procure 80 lakh tonnes of paddy from the estimated production of 148.03 lakh tonnes on 66.80 lakh acres. The 80 lakh tonnes procurement will include 40 lakh tonnes each of fine and common varieties.

Of the 8,342 purchasing centers planned for the Kharif marketing season, 1,205 had already opened and started purchasing. Of the total procurement centres, IKP will manage/establish 3,517, PACS 4,259 and other 566. The government was planning to complete Kharif paddy procurement by the end of the second week of January.