The agriculture department today finalized modalities for the procurement of Paddy after Kharif Season harvest here at a meeting chaired by Director Agriculture, H. K. Razdan.The meeting stressed upon smooth and timely procurement of paddy by the Food Corporation of India. The arrangement of space, logistic support and necessary facilities for organizing procurement mandies by the FCI, F, CS&CA and Agriculture Departments respectively were discussed threadbare.Instructions were issued to Agriculture, F, CS&CA and FCI departments to give wide publicity to purity/quality standards for Grade A and Common Grade paddy required to make it fit for procurement by FCI at the Minimum Support Price (MSP). The government has set MSP of Rs. 1770/- per quintal for Grade A and Rs. 1750/- per quintal for Common Grade Paddy. It was informed in the meeting that 11 procurement centers for Jammu district, 7 for Kathua and 1 procurement centers (Mandies) for Samba are being opened this year to save the farmers from distress sale of their produce.The meeting was attended by Deputy Director FCS&CA Jammu, Kulraj Singh, Deputy General Manager, FCI, Jammu, P. K. Behura, Area Manager FCI Jammu, Rupesh Kumar Shah, AGM, FCI, Jammu, Ashok Kumar Sinha, I/C Deputy Director Agriculture (Central) Jammu, Jagmohan Bhat, ADO Jammu, S. K. Langer, CAO Kathua, Arun Gupta, Subject Matter Specialist (DL), S. K. Bhagat and S. N. Uppal.