The Indian government has met nearly 85 per cent of its kharif rice procurement target between October 1 and February 1. This may help it to reach last year’s procurement level at the end of the season and ease pressure on foodgrain distribution. A bumper harvest of wheat coupled with comfortable procurement may further help it to increase allocation under the food security law.

Pan-India procurement in terms of rice was 43.73 million tonnes (mt) valued at over ₹1.36 lakh crore in the four months since the kharif marketing season began on October 1. This is compared with 43.59 mt bought during the same period a year ago. The target from the entire kharif season (October 1-March 31) is 52.1 mt. So far, 87 lakh farmers have got the benefit from the paddy procurement programme as the Centre buys at minimum support price (MSP) of ₹2,060/quintal (Grade A variety).

Kharif paddy procurement in West Bengal has been extended until May 31 and in Assam up to June 30. Procurement has got over in most of the States, while it will end on February 15 in Madhya Pradesh, February 28 in eastern Uttar Pradesh, on March 31 in Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Not impact on UP, Bihar

According to the latest data, there was no significant impact on procurement in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as was feared earlier since these two States had experienced deficient rainfall during the south-west monsoon season. Most of the districts in these States reported deficient rainfall.

“In western UP, there is a 20,000-tonne rise and in eastern UP there is a fall of about 40,000 tonnes compared with the year-ago period,” a government official said, adding that the State had exceeded the target of 4 mt. He attributed the drop to higher prices in the open market as there has been a lot of demand.

Procurement in Punjab and Haryana has been completed with 12.19 mt and 3.95 mt, purchases respectively. While the buying Punjab is lower by 3.3 lt (down 2.6 per cent), it is 3 lt more (up by 8.2 per cent) in Haryana.

Odisha buys 27% more

In Chhattisgarh, the rice procurement ended at 6.16 mt, the same as last year despite 1.6 mt being purchased in November 2022 as the buying schedule was advanced by a month from the usual December 1. In Odisha, authorities have reported a 27 per cent jump to 3.1.6 mt whereas in Telangana it has declined 9 per cent to 4.17 mt.

Bihar is another State where the procurement is down by 13 per cent at 1.89 mt and it may not be able to achieve its target of 3 mt this year due to drought. The procurement in the State may end up at around 2.5 mt, officials said, adding that farmers have been realising better prices this year on demand from exporters. Madhya Pradesh has reported 3.09 mt purchase, a notch higher from 3.07 mt a year ago.

“Rice procurement in January was nearly 30 per cent lower from the year-ago period while in each of the previous three months, purchases were nearly 10 per cent higher. As there has been a significant increase in demand in recent days, procurement may dip in February and March. In that case, the government may be able to buy less than last year,” a former top official of the Food Corporation of India said .

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