Wheat procurement surpasses last year's figures; Punjab leads

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 25

Procurement of wheat by government agencies this year surpassed last year’s figures of 341.31 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) to touch 341.56 LMT as on May 24, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said on Monday.

Overcoming impediments created due to the spread of COVID-19 virus, country-wide lockdown and other issues, the ministry said the figure surpasses last year’s procurement by 25,000 tonnes 

Punjab is leading with 125.84 LMT followed by Madhya Pradesh and Haryana

Wheat harvesting generally starts towards end of March and procurement commences in the first week of April every year. However, with the imposition of national lockdown on March 23, all operations came to a standstill. 

Since the crop was already ready for harvesting, the central government gave relaxation to start agricultural and related activities during the lockdown period and the procurement could start from April 15 in most of the procuring states, officials said

In Haryana it started a little later on April 20.

Officials say their biggest challenge was to ensure procurement is done safely during the pandemic, which was achieved through a multi-pronged strategy of awareness creation, social distancing and deployment of technology. 

Number of purchase centres was increased substantially reducing the farmer footfalls in individual purchase centres. 

New centres were set up using every facility available at gram panchayat level and the numbers were increased sharply in the major procuring states like Punjab where it went up from 1836 to 3681, 599 to 1800 in Haryana and from 3545 to 4494 in Madhya Pradesh. 

Farmers were provided specific dates and slots using technology to bring their produce, which helped in avoiding crowding. 

Strict social distancing norms were followed and sanitization activities were undertaken regularly. 

In Punjab, every farmer was allotted specific spaces earmarked for dumping of stocks and no one else was allowed to enter those areas. Only people who were directly associated were allowed to be present during daily auctions.

Apart from virus there were other challenges this time. As all the Jute mills were closed, production of bags used for filling stopped, creating a major crisis. This was tackled by using more plastic bags, supplemented by used bags with very strict quality conditions.

Then unseasonal rains in all major producing states led  to wheat getting exposed to water. 

This posed a major threat to the farmers as such stocks could not be procured under normal specifications. “Government of India and Food Corporation of India (FCI) intervened immediately and after conducting detailed scientific analysis, specifications were re-fixed to ensure that no farmer is put to distress while making sure that the produce so procured meets the minimum quality requirements of the consumers,” they said.

Third challenge was the tight labour supply position as well as the general fear created among the masses about the virus. This was addressed by taking a series of confidence-building measures at the local level by the state administration. 

Total procurement 341.56 LMT

Punjab – 125.84 LMT

Madhya Pradesh – 113.38 LMT

Haryana- 70.65 LMT

Uttar Pradesh- 20.39 LMT

Rajasthan- 10.63 LMT

Uttarakhand- 0.31LMT

Gujarat -0.21LMT

Chandigarh -0.12LMT

Himachal Pradesh -0.03 LMT