The Maharashtra government has decided to give a grant of Rs 480 crore to Chana and Tur farmers who had registered under the government’s procurement scheme last season but their produce was not procured. The government has decided to give an endowment of `1,000 per quintal. Farmers shall receive grants for a maximum of 2 hectares. The Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation has been given the responsibility of ensuring that the grants reach the farmers, senior officials said. Last season several farmers had registered themselves for the government’s procurement programme, but did not receive alerts for purchase from the government agencies. Those farmers who had received confirmation from the government but did not sell their produce have been disqualified from the scheme. According to senior official, lists were being prepared by the Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation and the process of compilation is on and some of the grants may have been disbursed for the kharif season of 2017-18. Until April 18, the government had procured some 25.45 lakh quintals from the key producing regions of the state and had met nearly 65% of its target which was set at 44.67 lakh quintals.Some 4,57,833 farmers have so far registered themselves in the scheme. However, nearly 34.70 lakh quintals of tur is still pending to be purchased from 25,3816 farmers. These farmers were to be compensated. Marketing federation officials from Latur said that a list of 14,000 tur farmers and 3,000 Chana farmers has already been sent to the head office. In Beed, some 3,334 tur farmers have been included in the list. The amounts would be credited directly in farmers’ bank accounts linked with their Aadhar cards. At present, the government has started the procurement process for Moong, Udad and Soybean. Till date about 12,382.74 quintals of Moong has been procured from 2,299 farmers, 7,898.83 quintals of udad has been procured from 1,248 farmers and 173 quintals have been purchased from 36 farmers. Nearly 45,675 udad farmers, 35,785 moong farmers and 69,198 soybean farmers have registered for the procurement programme. The government of Maharashtra plans to procure 3.5 lakh quintals of moong, 4 lakh quintals of udad and 25 lakh quintals of soybean.(
Source: financialexpress )