Record procurement of wheat at 433.24 LMT in RMS 2021-22, says Centre

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 5

A record procurement of 433.24 LMT wheat has been made in the Rabi Marketing Season 2021-22, surpassing the previous high of 389.93 LMT in 2020-21, the Centre said on Monday. Briefing on the end-of RMS (2021-22) procurement, FCI CMD Atish Chandra said the highest procurement of 132.10 LMT wheat was from Punjab. Last year, Madhya Pradesh topped the list. According to Chandra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Jamp;K recorded their “best-ever”.

An all-time high MSP of Rs 84, 369.19 crore was directly transferred into the accounts of 4916424 farmers across the country under the ‘One Nation, One MSP, One DBT’ scheme. A record 49.16 lakh farmers benefitted against 43.35 lakh, last year, Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey said.

With 132.10 LMT wheat procured from the state, Punjab regained its leader’s position among states and UTs from where central and state agencies procure grains for welfare schemes. With 129. 42 LMT in 2020-21 RMS, Madhya Pradesh topped the list followed by Punjab (127.14 LMT). This year, 128.08 LMT wheat was procured from MP

Amid the expected issues related to bumper procurement and storage management, Chandra said “preparations for extra storage were made in advance based on procurement targets. Some unscientific storage is due to huge volumes of procurement. Currently, only 17.91 LMT grain is under unscientific storage. It is a small amount compared to what we have under scientific storage. We are committed to liquidating by July-end by disbursing it to beneficiaries. The PMGKAY has been greatly helpful. During 2020-21, only 0.003 per cent of grain (1800 tonnes) were damaged,” he said.

Notably, most of the grain under unscientific storage is in Punjab and Haryana.

Chandra said the FCI moved highest ever foodgrains, 594 LMT in 2020-21 in comparison to 389 LMT during 2019-20 under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna.

The Centre is running the longest ever exercise of distributing free food grains to people during this pandemic time, Pandey said, adding that 278.25 LMT foodgrains have been allocated under PMGKY 3 amp; 4 for the benefit of the most vulnerable.

Close to 1.5 crore monthly portability transactions are being recorded under ONORC, he said, adding that the Centre will very soon finalise a modal guideline based on suggestions received from States/UTs for preparing a list of common factors for inclusion or exclusion in ration cards for beneficiaries.