Improvement in rice procurement
02-Nov-2024 12:09 PM
During the current marketing season, when there was a massive decline of 48 per cent in the procurement of rice at the government level till October 15 as compared to last year, it seemed that the pace of procurement was going very slow and the anger of the farmers could remain.
But due to the activism of the central and state governments, the pace of procurement increased significantly in the second fortnight of October, due to which the difference compared to last year came down to around 20 percent.
Paddy - Government procurement of rice has now picked up pace, while its pace is expected to remain better in the future as well.
In the first 15 days of October, only 20.70 lakh tonnes of rice (its equivalent paddy) was procured by the government, but in the next 15 days, a little more than 63 lakh tonnes of rice was procured, due to which the total procurement reached close to 84 lakh tonnes by the end of October 2024, but still it remained 20 percent behind the procurement of 105.50 lakh tonnes in the same period last year.
Since the pace of procurement has started increasing now and its scope is going to spread beyond Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar-Bengal, the quantity of procurement will increase regularly.
Every effort is being made to overcome the problem of safe storage of rice in Punjab as it is the state that contributes the most food grains to the central pool.
By 31 October 2024, about 49 lakh tonnes of rice was procured in Punjab, which was about 25 percent less than the procurement of 65.10 lakh tonnes in the same period last year.
The infrastructure for the procurement of paddy-rice in Punjab is in a very developed state and now the ongoing case with the rice millers has also ended, so the procurement of paddy-rice is back on track.
It is known that this time a target has been set to purchase 124 lakh tonnes of rice in Punjab and the government hopes to achieve it.
Its process can be continued there in November as well. Generally paddy is purchased in Punjab from 1st October to 30th November.