Rupani asks NAFED, GUJCOMASOL, GUJCOT to clear the godowns in a month

Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister held a meeting of NAFED, GUJCOMASOL and GUJCOT at his residence in Gandhinagar and asked them to clear the godowns that are occupied with over 9 lakh tonne groundnut within one month.

NAFED chairman Valji Patel, MD SK Chadhdha, GUJCOMASO chairman Dilip Sanghani, GUJCOT chairman Jagdish Patel and senior officials of agriculture department were among those present in this meeting.

Gujarat government owned and other godowns have capacity to store 30 lakh tonne goods. All of these godowns are at present occupied with agricultural produces purchased by government on minimum support price(MSP). Among all agri produces, groundnuts occupy highest space. 35 kg groundnut occupy same space as 100 kg other agri produce which is three-times more. The government had last year purchased 78,000 tonne groundnut while this year purchased and stored 8.37 lakh tonne groundnut.As government owned godowns were not enough to store this stock, the government had to hire private godowns. In addition to groundnut, 2-3 lakh Tuver and Udad stock is also lying in godowns.

Incidents of fire in such godowns create news and give embarrassment to establishment.

The government had directed agencies to either export the stock or convert it to oil or carry out auction procedure. If godowns are not vacated, the government will not be able to carry out MSP purchase of Kharif agri produces.

DeshGujarat