Unexpected Surge in Rice Procurement in West Bengal

02-Jan-2026 08:58 PM

New Delhi: West Bengal is among the leading paddy-producing states in the country, and with the state assembly elections scheduled for 2026, a strong effort has begun to appease the state's paddy farmers.

During the current Kharif marketing season, government procurement of paddy equivalent to 10.27 lakh tonnes of rice has already been completed by December 31, 2025, whereas usually, the paddy procurement process doesn't even properly begin by this time.

In Uttar Pradesh, the pace of government paddy procurement was slow during October-November, but it improved in December.

The total government procurement of rice (and its equivalent paddy) in Uttar Pradesh during the October-December 2025 quarter improved to 24.45 lakh tonnes, which is 57,000 tonnes or 2.4 percent more than the 23.88 lakh tonnes procured during the same period in 2024. Similarly,

government rice procurement in Madhya Pradesh jumped by 35.3 percent from 16.25 lakh tonnes to 22.52 lakh tonnes, and in Uttarakhand, it increased by 15.4 percent from 4.34 lakh tonnes to 5.01 lakh tonnes.

In Punjab, one of the states contributing the most to the central food grain pool, rice procurement is reported to have fallen by 9.7 percent from 116.13 lakh tonnes last year to 104.80 lakh tonnes this year, and in Haryana, it has slipped from 35.99 lakh tonnes to 35.96 lakh tonnes.

However, this figure may change, as last year, a total of 36.17 lakh tonnes of rice was procured by the government in Haryana.