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The Madhya Pradesh government has begun wheat purchases from farmers in Indore and Ujjain division paying the minimum support price (MSP) of ₹1,735 per quintal. However, there is no clarity on the payment of bonus of ₹265 announced by the State in addition to the Centre’s MSP.
“Currently we are purchasing wheat on the MSP as announced by the Union government and so far we have not received any official information from the State government on payment of bonus to the farmers,” said an official in the Food and Civil Supplies Department here on the condition of anonymity. The official further said that the payment of bonus on wheat purchase will be made to the farmers after they receive the official notification.
L Mujalda, District Food and Civil Supplies Officer, Indore, confirmed BusinessLine that they are currently purchasing wheat from farmers in Indore division on the MSP only. Payment of bonus to the farmers will be credited to their accounts later on after the government’s notification.
The State, sometime back, had announced that it would pay a bonus of ₹265 per quintal to each farmer in addition to purchasing of wheat on the MSP. Accordingly, the State government was supposed to purchase wheat from Madhya Pradesh farmers at the rate of ₹2,000 per quintal.
AK Parmar, Joint Director, Procurement, on being contacted also corroborated the fact that currently, they are purchasing wheat from farmers in Madhya Pradesh only on the MSP .
Parmar said the government has not fixed any target for procurement of wheat in Madhya Pradesh this year. “The government will keep on purchasing wheat as long as farmers approach us through our e-uparjan portal,” he said.
Currently, the prices of mill quality wheat in mandis of Madhya Pradesh is fetching ₹1,750-1,850 a quintal to the farmers. However, after the State government’s announcement to pay a bonus of ₹265/quintal, the farmers had restricted the supply of new wheat crop to mandis on the hope that they will get better return for their crop if they sell it to the government.
However, with the lack of clarity on bonus payment on wheat purchases, the farmers’ interest to sell their crop to government agencies may diminish in the coming days, said Prakash Vora, a local trader.
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