Government Rice Procurement Crosses 19.4 Million Tonnes

03-Dec-2025 11:04 AM

New Delhi. While rice procurement in states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh has been relatively low, higher procurement in Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh has offset this.

According to government data, during the first two months of the current Kharif marketing season (October-November 2025), total national rice (essentially paddy) procurement increased to 19.414 million tons, a 12.7 percent increase over last year's 17.224 million tons during the same period.

This year, due to early arrivals of paddy in Punjab and Haryana, government procurement began in mid-September, while in Tamil Nadu, paddy procurement began on September 1st.

In Punjab, the state that contributes the largest share of food grains to the central pool, government procurement of rice this year reached only 10.48 million tons, a decrease of about 4 percent from last year's procurement of 10.917 million tons.

On the other hand, rice procurement in Haryana jumped by 30.4 percent from 27.58 lakh tonnes last year to 35.96 lakh tonnes this time.

According to official sources, these figures are subject to further revision as a total of 116.13 lakh tonnes of rice was procured in Punjab and 36.17 lakh tonnes in Haryana during the entire marketing season 2024-25.

The Central Government has set a target of procuring a total of 463.49 lakh tonnes of rice at the national level during the Kharif marketing season 2025-26, which includes the target of procuring 116 lakh tonnes in Punjab and 36 lakh tonnes in Haryana.

A total of 545.22 lakh tonnes of rice was procured at the national level during the entire Kharif marketing season 2024-25.

Compared to last year, government procurement of rice during the current Kharif marketing season has fallen by about 19 percent from 7.45 lakh tonnes to 6.05 lakh tonnes in Uttar Pradesh and from 6.77 lakh tonnes to 6.63 lakh tonnes in Chhattisgarh. Procurement in Chhattisgarh began on November 1, 2025, and will continue until January 31, 2026.

On the other hand, southern states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu are seeing a significant increase in government procurement of paddy and rice.

West Bengal has also procured 2.93 lakh tonnes of rice, whereas procurement had not even begun there by this time last year.