City Darpan, Chandigarh, October 14: The procurement of Paddy started in the State on 03.10.2021. Hafed is procuring Paddy at Minimum Support Price (MSP) as one of the State Procuring Agencies. Sh. A. Sreenivas, IAS, Managing Director, HAFED visited Barwala, Mullana, Mustafad and Jagadhari mandis to review procurement of paddy at MSP by the HAFED. Till date Hafed has procured 6.24 Lakh MT paddy from 127 mandis and purchase centres allotted to Hafed throughout the State, which comes to approx. 32% of total procurement of 19.83 lakh MT paddy in the State benefitting more than 60,000 farmers. This procurement shall continue till 15th November. He informed that the procurement of paddy is going on smoothly in the State. So, far 50% of the paddy has already been lifted from the mandis and allotted to various rice mills for custom milling. The payments to the farmers are also being released within 24-48 hours of lifting as against the target of 72 hours. So far, Hafed has already released payment amounting to Rs. 439 crore directly in the bank account of farmers. Sh. Sreenivas assured that Hafed shall always work in the best interest of farmers of the State.