NEW DELHI: The government's wheat procurement has touched an all-time record of 38.2 million tonnes so far in the 2020-21 marketing year, with Madhya Pradesh surpassing Punjab as the country's biggest wheat procuring state.
Overall, 42 lakh farmers in the country have been benefitted and a total amount of about Rs 73,500 crore has been paid to them towards a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for wheat, according to a Food Ministry statement.
The previous record was 38.18 million tonnes achieved in 2012-13. Wheat procurement stood at 34. 13 million tonnes during the 2019-20 marketing year.
Although the wheat marketing year runs from April-March, the bulk of procurement is normally done in the first three months.
Wheat procurement target has been set at 40.7 million tonnes for the current year.
State-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state agencies undertake purchase of wheat at MSP.
According to the food ministry, Madhya Pradesh became the largest contributor to the central pool with 12.9 million tonnes of wheat, surpassing Punjab which procured 12.7 million tonnes.
Haryana (7.4 million tonnes), Uttar Pradesh (3.2 million tonnes) and Rajasthan (1.9 million tonnes) also made significant contributions to the national procurement of wheat, it said.
The hefty inflow of foodgrains into the central pool ensured that the FCI is ready to meet any additional requirement of foodgrains for the people of the country in coming months, it added.
In the same period, government agencies procured 11.9 million tonnes of rabi paddy with maximum purchase from Telangana (6.4 million tonnes), followed by Andhra Pradesh (3.1 million tonnes).
"This has been accomplished during the trying times of COVID-19 pandemic when the whole country was under lockdown," the ministry said.
The commencement of wheat procurement was delayed by a fortnight due to the first lockdown and was kicked off only from April 15 in most of the wheat surplus states.
Extraordinary efforts have been made by state governments and all government procuring agencies led by the FCI to ensure that wheat is procured from farmers without any delay and in a safe manner, it said.
The number of purchase centres was increased from 14,838 to 21,869 this year by opening procurement centres in all possible locations, in addition to traditional mandis, the ministry said, adding that this has helped to reduce farmers' footfall in mandis and ensured proper social distancing.
Technological solutions were deployed to regulate the daily inflows into mandis through token systems.
These measures, along with actions on the ground for regular sanitising, earmarking of dumping areas for each farmer etc, ensured that none of the foodgrain procurement centres became COVID-19 hotspot anywhere in the country, it added.
The Union Agriculture Ministry in its third estimate has pegged wheat output to reach an all-time record level of 107.18 million tonnes in the 2019-20 crop year (July-June) as against 103.60 million tonnes in the previous year.