Government purchase of wheat in Madhya Pradesh is 40 percent less than the set target

17-Jun-2024 02:26 PM

Bhopal. During the current Rabi marketing season in Madhya Pradesh, the country's second largest wheat producing state after Uttar Pradesh,

the government purchase of this important food grain has been much less than expected and also less than the set target.

Mainly two reasons are being given for this. The first thing is that the wheat production in the state was not as expected and the second reason is that earlier the farmers in the state were promised to buy wheat at the rate of Rs 2700 per quintal,

but when the purchase season started, the price of wheat was fixed at Rs 2400 per quintal. This included the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2275 per quintal and an additional bonus of Rs 125 per quintal. The disappointment of the farmers increased due to not getting the price as promised.

It is understood that this year more than 15.48 lakh farmers in Madhya Pradesh had registered themselves to sell wheat to government agencies, but when the price of only Rs 2400 per quintal was announced against the promise of Rs 2700, about 60 percent of the registered farmers changed their mind and cancelled the plan to sell their wheat to the government.

The Union Food Ministry had set a target of purchasing 80 lakh tonnes of wheat in Madhya Pradesh for the current marketing season,

but the actual purchase fell short of 50 lakh tonnes and was limited to just 48 food tonnes. Due to this,

the government purchase of wheat at the national level also remained far behind the set target. The reality is that the purchase of wheat in any state of the country could not reach the set target.

Madhya Pradesh was at the second position after Punjab in terms of contributing wheat to the central pool for the last four years, but this time it slipped behind Haryana and came to the third position.