UP procures more than twenty three Lakh tonnes of wheat, pays Rs 4,600 crore to farmers
Despite an unwavering second wave of Covid-19, the Uttar Pradesh government has reported a robust rabi marketing season 2021-22 with wheat procurement of about 2.33 million tonnes (MT) and counting. The state has directly transferred around Rs 4,600 crore to the bank accounts of the wheat farmers under the minimum support price (MSP) system.
Virendra Singh Rawat
Lucknow / May 13, 2021
Despite an unwavering second wave of Covid-19, the Uttar Pradesh government has reported a robust rabi marketing season 2021-22 with wheat procurement of about 2.33 million tonnes (MT) and counting.
The state has directly transferred around Rs 4,600 crore to the bank accounts of the wheat farmers under the minimum support price (MSP) system.
Earlier, the government had hiked wheat MSP from Rs 1,925 in 2020-21 to Rs 1,975 in 2021-22, and ramped up the number of procurement centres by 20 per cent to 6,000 this year for seamless procurement in the backdrop of the pandemic and subsequent partial curfew.
The procurement season, which began on April 1 will continue till June 15, 2021, although the Yogi Adityanath government has already announced that the procurement centres would function till the farmers continued to sell their produce.
Besides, the Yogi Adityanath government had roped in Lucknow-based Remote Sensing Application Centre for geo-tagging of the purchase centres and grain storage to ensure transparency and weed out middlemen.
The state engaged 150 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) and local farm entities to aid the procurement process and promote grassroots level rural entrepreneurs.
Last year, the state government could barely manage to procure 3.5 MT of wheat against the seasonal target of 5.5 MT due to the first wave of the pandemic. This year, the government has not set any target for the season.
Meanwhile, the review of the state wheat procurement process is being monitored at the highest level, including chief minister Adityanath so that it is not hampered due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions.
At the same time, the prompt transfer of money to the wheat farmers ensures that the rural economy does not get stifled in the pandemic, while it is also aimed at blunting the opposition charge on account of the recent farm laws.
(Virendra Singh Rawat is a Lucknow based journalist, who writes on contemporary issues of industry, economy, agriculture, infrastructure, budget etc)
