Uttar Pradesh likely to miss 8 mt wheat procurement target by a wide margin

However, the current procurement of 3 mt is four times the cumulative procurement clocked in 2016

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government is likely to miss its wheat procurement target in the current rabi marketing season. The Yogi Adityanath government has procured only three million tonnes (mt) of wheat so far since April 1, which is just 40 per cent of the target of eight mt, even as only a fortnight remains before the procurement season ends on June 15.

However, the current procurement of three mt is four times the cumulative procurement clocked in 2016, which was less than 800,000 tonnes against the target of 4.5 mt in the Akhilesh Yadav's dispensation.

The state farmers have been paid nearly Rs 4,500 crore for procurement by the government agencies this season.

Apart from government agencies, the state government has authorised two private agencies to procure wheat to accelerate procurement. The private entities would collectively procure about 100,000 tonnes of wheat and open their separate procurement centres.

Meanwhile, UP Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said the farmers were happy with the procurement and there was no discontentment among them.

Earlier, the Yogi government had announced to pay Rs 10/quintal in addition to the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,625/quintal of wheat as loading and unloading charges.

If the government had achieved its procurement target, from government agencies alone, the UP farmers would have got Rs 13,000 crore as total payments in the current marketing season.

The rest of wheat is free to be sold in the open market or retained for private consumption by farmers. Higher MSP helps farmers get remunerative prices in open market.

This year UP has clocked wheat production of nearly 34 mt, indicating that the government's procurement target would be less than 25 per cent of the total wheat output this season.

The government has set up nearly 5,000 procurement centres across the state. However, UP lacks adequate warehousing facilities to store such large quantity of the rabi crop on the back of dismal wheat procurement over the past few years.

UP Food and Civil Supplies department had earlier claimed that the procurement process would gain momentum as the days advance, but it is certain that the target is too high to be met now.

The government had claimed there was no scarcity of space for the storage and if needed, additional storage capacity would be sourced from private parties, central government agencies and Food Corporation of India (FCI). Of the 80 lakh procurement target, the FCI has the target of one mt.

The government had issued directives to weed out middlemen from the procurement process and warned officials against laxity.