February 27: It has been found that the state-owned Food Management and Trading Company Limited (FMTC), failed to purchase paddy as per its own target. According to FMTC, it was not possible to purchase paddy as per the target due to the delay in the purchase process.

FMTC said that the problem surfaced because the government fixed the support price after most of the farmers sold the paddy and FMTC as well started buying it late.

The company had set a target of buying 30,200 metric tons of paddy from the farmers for the current fiscal year, but managed to buy only 15,000 tons so far. This year, the company purchased paddy from its depots based in Rajapur, Dhangadhi, Mahendranagar, Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa, Birgunj, Biratnagar, Birtamod, Janakpur and Lahan. In some places, the purchase intermittently continues, but in some places, FMTC has already suspended the work of purchasing paddy.

The delay in fixing the support price and late start of buying are the main reasons for the company not being able to buy paddy as per the target.

After most of the farmers sold the paddy, the government fixed the price of coarse paddy at Rs 2,976 per quintal and the price of medium paddy at Rs 3,128 per quintal. Even after the support price was fixed, the farmers had to protest nationwide because FMTC did not buy paddy for a long time stating that the budget was not released.

FMTC on the other hand, said that the target of buying paddy could not be achieved because farmers sold more rice to local traders than to the company. Mohan Prakash Chand, the chief executive officer of the company, says that late pricing is one of the main reasons, but most of the farmers take loans from local traders and they are forced to sell rice to the traders, leaving less paddy for FMTC. According to Chand, another major reason for not buying paddy as per the target is low quality rice in some places as FMTC does not buy low quality rice.

As the purchase of paddy has been less this year, FMTC is buying rice for storage. The company has also invited tenders to buy 142,000 quintals of rice. Bhishma Neupane, head of the procurement department of the company, said that they are going to buy rice after not being able to buy paddy as per the target.

The company is preparing to buy 15,000 quintals of rice from Lahan, 10,000 quintals from Biratnagar, 3,000 quintals from Birtamod, 22,000 quintals from Birgunj, 20,300 quintals from Kathmandu, 20,000 quintals from Nepalgunj and 7,800 quintals from Bhairahawa. Similarly, the company plans to buy 2,000 quintals of rice from Tulsipur, 20,100 quintals from Surkhet and 22,000 quintals from Dhangadhi.