Lucknow
In the run-up to the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh (UP) polls, the Yogi Adityanath government is targeting to procure 7 million tonnes (MT) of paddy in the coming Kharif marketing season beginning October 1.
If the UP government is able to achieve its procurement target, the state paddy farmers will get more than Rs 13,000 crore in direct benefit transfer (DBT) under the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism.
In this Kharif season, the MSP has been fixed at Rs 1,940 per quintal (100 kg) for common paddy and Rs 1,960 per quintal for Grade A paddy.
According to the UP government, paddy is expected to start arriving in the market soon and that the state has planned to set up 4,000 procurement centres spanning all 75 districts.
In the recent Rabi marketing season, the UP government agencies had procured about 6.6 MT of wheat to keep the farmers in good humour ahead of polls, wherein the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will seek re-election amid farm protests and pandemic-bred socioeconomic challenges.
Of the 4,000 procurement centres, 1,500 and 1,100 centres will be set up by the UP Cooperative Federation (PCF) and the UP Food and Civil Supplies Department respectively, followed by UP Cooperative Union (600), UP Consumer Cooperative Union (300), Food Corporation of India (FCI) (300) and UP State Krishi Utpadan Mandi Parishad (200).
These centres will be geo-tagged with the help of the Lucknow-based Remote Sensing Application Centre (RSAC).
The farmers are mandated to register on the food and civil supplies portal www.fcs.up.gov.in. The paddy will be procured after the biometric authentication of farmers through the electronic point of purchase (e-pop) machines.
Meanwhile, the procurement of paddy in the Western regions will be done between October 1, 2021, and January 31, 2022, while the Eastern UP region will witness the procurement from November 1, 2021, to February 28, 2022.