Jute Growers Asked To Avoid Distress Sale

The West Bengal government will soon convene a meeting with the management of different jute mills in the state to discuss purchase of raw jute from the Jute Corporation of India.

The total number of jute mills in the state is 59 and the number of jute growers is around 26 lakh.

At a recent meeting of the state cabinet, chief minister Jyoti Basu expressed the governments satisfaction over Union governments decision to allow the Jute Corporation to implement its minimum support price (MSP) operations to arrest rapid fall in prices of raw jute in view of a bumper crop.

 

This year total production of raw jute in the country is expected to cross 10 million bales. The states production is nearly 64 lakh bales.

Biren Moitra, minister for agriculture marketing, said late last week that the government had requested the jute growers not to make distress sale of raw jute.

Jute Corporation had agreed to purchase 1 million bales and the jute mill owners were asked to lift the stocks from it as directed by the Jute Commissioner.

The state government had already warned the mill-owners of firm action if they failed to lift stocks from Jute Corporation on time.

State finance minister Asim Dasgupta said that for implementing the minimum support price, the Union government had announced a provision of Rs 140 crore for the Jute Corporation.

The textile ministry had already released Rs 20 crore to the organisation, while the financial institutions have agreed to provide Rs 99 crore.

Jute Corporation would be able to procure 1 million bales of raw jute through mobilisation of these funds. It has already procured 2 lakh bales from the rural markets in states jute growing areas.

Meanwhile, a senior officer from the agricultural marketing department of the West Bengal government is being sent to New Delhi to discuss with the Union agricultural ministry the proposal for purchasing one lakh tonne of potatoes from the state by the Centre.

On the other hand, the state government has planned to sell potatoes from the public distribution system from the next week in view of a serious glut of the commodity.

As the project would be subsidised, the Union government has agreed to meet fifty per cent of total subsidy of Rs 2 crore.