Odisha govt guarantee for loans to Markfed, Aska Sugar Mill

The State Cabinet today approved providing of loans to the ailing Odisha State Cooperative Marketing Federation (Markfed) and Aska Sugar Mill.

Markfed would get a loan of Rs 30 crore from the cooperative bank while Aska Sugar Mill would get Rs 20 crore. In both cases, the government will act as the guarantor.

The loan to Markefed is meant for procuring groundnut and sunflower seed from farmers at minimum support price (MSP) rates to avoid distress sale of the oilseed varieties. The state government had recently decided to spend Rs 127 crore on procuring the two oilseed crops as per a request by National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Fedration of India Ltd (Nafed), which is undertaking such exercises all over the country in association with state government agencies.

As per an action plan prepared by Markfed, about 28300 tonne groundnut would be procured under the price support system operation in the state. The exercise would be conducted at six districts namely Puri, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Baleswar and Bhadrak, where the crop is grown on nearly 250,000 hectares (ha).

Similarly, nearly 500 tonne sunflower seed has been pegged to be procured. In terms of production, Odisha is the sixth largest in groundnut and fifth biggest producer in sunflower in India.

Separately, the Cabinet recommended to the Governor the dissolution of the 14th state assembly to pave the way for the new assembly after declaration of election results.

"As per Constitutional requirement, we have recommended the dissolution of the state assembly to the Governor", chief secretary J K Mohapatra said after the Cabinet meeting.