Comments
Despite a delayed start to wheat procurement, Madhya Pradesh has so far procured over 66 lakh tonnes (63.67 lakh tonnes till Monday) as against 53 lt in the corresponding period last year and is well on the path to achieve the upwardly revised procurement target of 95 lt, said a senior State official on Tuesday.
Till Monday, Food Corporation of India (FCI) and State agencies that procure wheat for FCI at minimum support price (MSP), have procured 252.5 lt of wheat from 10 wheat-growing States in current rabi marketing season as againsr 292.61 lt in the corresponding period in the previous season.
Procurement centres
“We have increased the number of procurement points for farmers by nearly 1,000 this year. And farmers have to come to the centre with the text messages that they received from the agency. We gave preference to small and marginal farmers,” said HS Parmar, Joint Director at the State Food Department, in Bhopal.
“We have kept the primary procurement target of 95 lt, which may go up further to 100 lt. In comparison, we procured 73 lt last year,” he said. Apart from having an increase in acreage under wheat, the crop this year too was good. As a result, a bumper crop is expected, he said.
State-wise data
Madhya Pradesh is currently ranked second in terms of quantity of wheat procured after Punjab, which procured nearly 115 lt, compared with 121 lt during the same period last year.
Uttar Pradesh is another State which is lagging in wheat procurement. As against 19 lt in the same period last year, the State agency has procured only close to 12 lt till Monday.
PTI adds: In Haryana, the number of mandis for wheat, which was initially at 389, have been increased to 1,895 after addition of 1,507 new centres, while 112 new procurement centres have been added for mustard. Similarly, 30 mandis or procurement centres have been established for gram.
Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala said that wheat is being procured at a minimum support price of ₹1,925 a quintal, mustard at ₹4,425 and gram at ₹4,875.
Sanjeev Kaushal, Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, said that 62.44 lt of wheat has been procured from 3,99,432 farmers in the State in the last 19 days. As much as 5.69 lt of mustard has been procured from 2,10,319 farmers.
Mustard and wheat procurement in the state began from April 15 and April 20, respectively.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.