THIRUVANANTHAPURAM,February 27, 2014:The government has issued permission to procurement agencies to start procuring rubber directly from farmers at a price above the Kottayam market price by Rs.2.
An official press release on Wednesday said the Rubbermark (Kerala State Cooperative Rubber Marketing Federation), Marketfed (Kerala State Marketing Federation), and various rubber producing companies under the Rubber Board would undertake the procurement work. The procurement exercise would continue till the price of rubber climbed up to the level of Rs.171 a kg, which was the average price the commodity had fetched for the farmer during the three-year period from 2009-10 to 2011-12.
The plan was to procure 10,000 tonnes of rubber in the first stage. The agencies interfering in the market would be given Rs.6 a kg of rubber procured as handling charge. The amount required for this would be shared by the Agriculture Department and the Cooperative Department at 2:1 ratio from their non-plan resources.
The press release said that the procurement agencies should refund to the government the amount received as handling charge from their profits on selling the procured rubber (if the selling had fetched profits). The agencies should sell the procured rubber at the best possible prices and take care not to incur any losses through the procurement programme.
The procurement agencies should not procure rubber from traders. If any agency was found to have violated this direction, it would face stringent action, the press release added.
Plan is to procure 10,000 tonnes of rubber initially.
Source: The Hindu
