West Bengal govt to hold meeting on jute situation next week

The West Bengal government has proposed a meeting on October 25 to take stock of the state's jute situation which is getting murkier.
The meeting likely to be headed by a senior official of the agriculture department will be held in presence of the jute commissioner, official sources told PTI.
It would be a follow-up of the Group of Minister's meeting held on October 16.
This meeting would review procurement situation of gunny bags for the kharif marketing season of 2017-18, the sources said.
The other issues on the agenda includes jute situation of the state. West Bengal government was trying to coordinate with central agencies on the problems of jute mills and farmers.

Raw jute situation is turning to be alarming for the state government as farmers are allowed to go for distress sale of jute even Rs 700 below minimum support price.

According to state government, Jute Corporation of India (JCI) was operating 27 direct purchase centres out of 171 in West Bengal.
JCI has purchased just 28,000 bales under MSP out of the total state production of 65 lakh bales in state.
The Centre's decision of procuring only low weight bags of 580 g replacing 665 g bags since December 2015 has created lot of problem for the state.
It has created surplus TD6 raw jutes while deficit of higher grade jute in the state is making it double whammy for state government.