The Gujarat government on Saturday said procurement of an additional one lakh tonnes of groundnut at the minimum support price (MSP) rate will take place between March 5 to March 9 from farmers who have registered themselves on the online platform. Gujarat Chief Secretary J. N. Singh said about 36,480 farmers have registered themselves using the online platform for groundnut procurement.

"The state government will procure 1 lakh tonnes of groundnut from these farmers from 110 procurement centres across 22 districts for the purpose. The procurement process will be undertaken between March 5 to March 9 in association with Nafed through state-appointed agencies including Banas Dairy, Sabar Dairy, Gujcomasol, GujCot and Gujpro. The entire procurement process will be video-graphed and will be done under strict CCTV surveillance to ensure smooth operations and fair practice," said Singh.

Since procurement began in October 2017, about 9 lakh tonnes of groundnut have been procured at the MSP rate of Rs 4,500 per quintal, which includes Rs 50 bonus from the state government. Gujarat, the largest producer of groundnut, has registered a record groundnut crop at 32 lakh tonnes for 2017-18, which is about 10.5 per cent higher than the 29 lakh tonnes recorded last year. However, Nafed had produced about 2.1 lakh tonnes of groundnut last year under MSP.

Earlier, the Gujarat government had requested the Agriculture Ministry to allow an additional 4 lakh tonnes of groundnut procurement. However, the Centre had initially allowed 1 lakh tonnes considering storage constraints. In Gujarat, the procurement agencies have already purchased a record quantity of groundnut worth over Rs 3,500 crore, after market prices of the oilseed fell to as low as Rs 3,250 per quintal. Procurement at the MSP of Rs 4,500 per quintal had begun in October 2017.

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