Wheat procurement: UP govt files 50 FIRs in a move to clamp down middlemen

In a bid to clamp down upon middlemen operating the wheat procurement space, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has filed 50 First Information Reports (FIR) against such elements.

“We have filed FIRs against 100 middlemen across the state,” UP food and civil supplies additional commissioner A K Singh told Business Standard. “Since the wheat procurement is progressing at a brisk pace, we are now concentrating on qualitative procurement rather than quantitative procurement,” he added.

Besides, the government has ordered the shutdown of about 100 procurement centres run by two multi-state cooperative societies namely, NACOF and ADCO for allegedly flouting procurement norms of paying farmers within 72 hours and filing procurement details online within 24 hours.

Year	Procurement target

(million tonnes)

Actual procurement

(million tonnes)

MSP

(per quintal)

2013 6 0.7 Rs 1,350 2014 4.5 0.6 Rs 1,400 2015 3 2.2 Rs 1,450 2016 4.5 0.8 Rs 1,525 2017 8 4.0 Rs 1,625 2018 (Underway) 5 4.0 Rs 1,735

Meanwhile, the state agencies have already procured 4 million tonnes (MT) of wheat, which is 80% of the target set for the current rabi marketing season. In fact, UP’s target of 5 MT corresponds to 16% of the country’s collective procurement target of 32 MT.

This year, UP wheat production stood at about 35 MT. However, bulk of production finds way to the local market or retained by farmers for private consumption. Higher minimum support price (MSP) for food grain aids farmers get remunerative prices in the open market as well.
 

In all, more than 6,400 procurement centres have been set up, while the procurement season, which had started on April 1, would continue till June 15. So far, wheat has been procured from over 750,000 farmers, who have been paid nearly Rs 69 billion through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS).