Gandhinagar: The procurement of groundnut for 2019-20 season under center’s Minimum Support Price (MSP) scheme which started a day ago at over a hundred centers across the state has been suspended till November 15 due to the ongoing spell of non-seasonal rain and the looming specter of more rain due to cyclonic storm Maha which is likely to move towards the state from the day after tomorrow.

CM Vijay Rupani today said that the procurement of groundnut at the MSP has been suspended due to rainy weather. He said that it has been suspended till November 15 and the new schedule of it would announced later.

Notably the procurement process at 145 centers across the state under CCTV monitoring and foolproof arrangements for storage had begun yesterday but it had faced glitches due to non-seasonal rain. This year the MSP has been fixed at Rs 1018 per Mun or 20 kg unit ie Rs 5090 per quintal. If the need be the number of procurement centers would also be increased. This year it has been estimated that a record production of around 25 lakh tonnes of groundnut would be there in Gujarat and the government would procure around 8 lakh tonnes at MSP.

Last year around 4.50 lakh tonnes of groundnut was procured at the rate of Rs 5000 per quintal.

DeshGujarat