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The Gujarat government on Monday started wheat procurement through its State Civil Supplies Corporation from the designated 219 procurement centres.
The much-awaited wheat procurement had to be put on hold due to the outbreak of Covid-19. However, the State government had last week announced resuming the wheat procurement from Monday.
The officials confirmed commencement of the procurement as per the schedule, but only a farmers turned up to sell their wheat produce on the first day.
“Wheat procurement had actually started before Covid-19 struck. But after the outbreak, procurement was put on hold. Now that we have resumed from today, we see some farmers bringing their produce to sell at the MSP rates,” a senior official at the Gujarat State Civil Supplies Corporation (GSCSC), told Businessline .
The market price of wheat had slipped below the minimum support price (MSP) levels — the rate at which the procurement agencies purchase from farmers. The Centre has hiked the MSP for the grain by ₹85 per quintal to ₹1,925 for 2019-20.
As on April 25, wheat market prices quoted in the range of ₹1,710-1,805 with the modal price at ₹1,735 for the Lokvan variety. The arrivals were reported at 760 tonnes. Last year around same time, arrivals were at 320 tonnes with a price range of ₹1,825-2,050 with a modal price at ₹1,890 a quintal.
Totally, 30,435 farmers have registered to participate in the MSP operations through GSCSC. On the first day, 38 farmers participated and the agency procured about 1,449 quintals worth about ₹28 lakh.
Notably, the purchases have to be completed by May 30 so all the interested farmers have been asked to register for the process by May 10.
No APMCs
This year, the State government has asked farmers to bring their crops directly to the GSCSC warehouses/godowns in stead of conducting the procurement operations at the nearby APMC market yards.
“This time we are asking farmers to compulsorily bring their crop to our centres only as we are not conducting any operations through APMCs. The rationale behind this decision is more about logistical convenience and quality control. Unlike the procurement of crops such as groundnut and tur, which we do on behalf of Nafed, this is our own purchases and we will use it as per the directions from Food Corporation of India. So this gives us better control over the stock and convenience to farmers to bring it directly to the warehouses,” the official quoted above said.
Once registered, the farmers are intimated through an SMS about the time and date allotted to them for procurement at the designated warehouse/procurement centre.
Gujarat has reported total wheat cultivation on 13.95 lakh hectares for rabi season ending February 2020 — which is about 73 per cent higher than 8.07 lakh hectares reported last year.
In its third advanced estimate for the year 2019-20, the State put an estimate of 40.36 lakh tonnes of wheat output, up by 67 per cent from 24.07 lakh tonnes estimated for 2018-19.
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