No jute procurement if moisture content exceeds 18%

The ongoing floods in eatern and northeastern states may affect jute procurement as Jute Corporation of India (JCI) today said it cannot procure the natural fibre under minimum support price mechanism if the moisture content exceeds 18 per cent.
"We cannot procure raw jute if moisture content exceeds 18 per cent. The floods may cause some problem in procurements," JCI CMD KVR Murthy said here today.
Jute is produced in West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Tripura and Meghalaya. West Bengal alone accounts for over 50 per cent of the country's jute production.
JCI said allegations of poor MSP operation is unfounded and said the agency could not begin it before August 15 due to quality issues.

There had been allegations that jute farmers had to make distress sale of their produce due to lack of proper MSP operations and few varities are already ruling below support price.
"Allegations of inadequate role of JCI in jute procurement is wrong. We have limited network and we have to maintain quality," he said.
JCI in the last fiscal procured about one lakh quintals of raw jute in MSP which is about one-fourth of total procurement done the government agency.
It procured about 3.3 lakh quintals of jute in commercial operation in 2016-17.