Bumper Crop in Jharkhand This Year: CM

Jharkhand has produced bumper crop this year and the government would purchase paddy from farmers at Rs 1600 per quintal, Chief Minister Raghubar Das said today.The farmers would also be paid bonus, he said and directed officials to open more paddy purchasing centres on mission mode at places where production was more. Das asked to set up camps for registration of farmers, an official release said here.He asked officials to ensure that the farmers should not face any difficulty and save them from middlemen and minister and officials should visit for on the spot for review, the release said.Das asked them to prepare a long-term scheme so that the purchased paddy for BPL families and midday meals could be produced in the state itself.The secretary to Food, Public Distribution System and Consumer Affairs, Vinay Kumar Choubey said this year the target set for paddy purchase is four lakh metric tonne compared to last year's 2.5 metric tonne.So far, 44,000 farmers have been registered while the target for registration is 55,000 farmers by March, 2017, Choubey said, adding the registered farmers were being informed through SMS.Food, Public Distribution System and Consumer Affairs Minister Saryu Roy, Agriculture Minister Randhir Singh, Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma, Additional Chief Secretary Amit Khare, Agriculture secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni and other officials were present in the meeting.(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)