Farmers in the district have called for deploying mobile direct purchase centres to procure paddy.Participating in the monthly agriculture grievance meeting held here on Thursday, they said they were annoyed with the current situation of paddy procurement. While the “kuruvai” paddy grains harvested with much difficulty due to unpredictable climatic conditions were brought to the DPCs, shortage of space cropping up due to the delay in moving the procured paddy to godowns, resulted in slow procurement and thereby exposing the harvested grains to the vagaries of nature once again.While urging the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation to ensure the availability of dryers apart from winnowers at all the DPCs, they exhorted the State government to impress upon the Centre to relax the moisture content percentage condition to 22 from the existing 17.Demanding that paddy procurement should be done on Saturdays and Sundays as harvesting of kuruvai paddy to be taken up simultaneously through out the district, they called upon the district administration to verify whether the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation was carrying out any shale gas extraction tests at the active oil well sites such as Kathiramangalam and Theepambalpuram in Thanjavur district. Published - September 25, 2025 05:30 pm IST