Govt's wheat procurement touches record high of 38.98 MT so far in 2020-21

The government's wheat procurement has touched an all-time record of 38.98 million tonnes so far in 2020-21 marketing year (April-March), with Madhya Pradesh surpassing Punjab as the country's biggest wheat procuring state.

The previous record was 38.18 million tonnes achieved in 2012-13. Wheat procurement stood at 34.77 million tonnes during 2019-20 marketing year.

Wheat marketing year runs from April-March, but 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.

The state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state agencies undertake purchase of wheat at minimum support price (MSP).

"We have procured 38.98 million tonnes of wheat so far. The procurement operations are almost complete in major states. Few thousand tonnes more will be brought in the next few days," a senior FCI official told PTI.

According to FCI's latest data, Madhya Pradesh became the largest contributor to the central pool with 12.93 million tonnes of wheat, surpassing Punjab which procured 12.71 million tonnes.

Haryana (7.4 million tonnes), Uttar Pradesh (3.55 million tonnes) and Rajasthan (2.21 million tonnes) also made significant contributions to national procurement of wheat.

FCI has a total stock of 81.25 million tonnes as on July 8, of which wheat comprises 54.52 million tonnes and rice is at 26.72 million tonnes.

The central government had relaxed lockdown norms to start agricultural and related activities, with procurement commencing only from April 15 in most of the procuring states.

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.