Ensure bank guarantees from millers, officials told

Nellore: Joint Collector Imtiaz Ahmed directed the Tahsildars on Tuesday to bring bank guarantees from the millers by Wednesday. He said 10,000 MT of paddy reached the PPCs worth Rs 16 crore and assured the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to the farmers.

He reviewed with the officials of Civil Supplies department and owners of rice mills on Tuesday and said so far payments of Rs 2 crore have been made to farmers regarding purchase of paddy.

Joint Collector said this year yielding is very good and they would take measures to implement the MSP strictly. He asked the rice millers to provide bank guarantees and said millers from Guntur also came to purchase paddy and they had accepted a bank guarantee of Rs 20 crore.

He informed that fine quality of Jilakara Masoori in the district will be converted as boiled rice and hence the millers are preferring MSP under general variety rather than Grade-A. He said Grade-A variety would be paid Rs 13,515 and normal variety at Rs 13,175 per Putti.

The Joint Collector also said they are ready purchase paddy from all centres where they had made arrangements. Civil Supplies Officer Ramana asked the staff members to be vigilant at the PPCs across the district as they had handed over the list of centres to the Collector and other officials, who will inspect at any point of time.

Joint Director of Agriculture Chandra Naik, Assistant Director of Marketing Upendra, district manager of civil supplies Krishna Reddy, owners of rice mills and other officials were present.