Chennai, Jun 21 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to advance paddy procurement by a month and commence it from September 1 instead of October 1 to safeguard farmers' interests.

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The paddy harvesting season in late September or early October would coincide with both South West Monsoon and North East Monsoon leading to yield loss or massive crop damage due to inundation during cyclones, Stalin said in a letter to Modi.

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However, this year, due to the proactive steps taken by the state government, farmers are confident of harvesting their 'Kuruvai' (short term) paddy crop commencing from the last week of August, 2022.

The new Minimum Support Price (MSP) announced by the Centre for Kharif Marketing Season (KMS), 2022 would be applicable from October 1, 2022 onwards.

"Due to advance and timely initiatives taken by the Government of Tamil Nadu, it is expected that Kuruvai Paddy harvest would commence from the last week of August itself."

Hence, the Centre's Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department should be directed to advance paddy procurement by 1 month. The procurement should commence from September 1, 2022 instead of October 1, 2022 to safeguard the interests of farmers of Tamil Nadu.

"As Tamil Nadu has experienced a favourable agricultural season this year, the order of the Government of India to procure Paddy from 1st September would immensely help farmers of Tamil Nadu to fetch remunerative price for Paddy and realise the benefit of increased MSP for the Kharif Marketing Season, 2022 by Government of India."

Stalin thanked Modi for having announced the MSP for all Kharif crops well before the commencement of sowing. In recent times, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had targeted the Centre over paddy procurement and it had also led to a political slugfest between Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the BJP.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)