The state government is most likely to fall short of the paddy procurement target in the election year, people dealing with the matter said.
A drop in the paddy production to the tune of 40 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) this year is also being seen one of the major reasons for this.
Last year, the government’s paddy purchase had exceeded the procurement target.
“So far little more than 63 LMT of paddy has been purchased which is only 90% of the target even as the procurement season 2021-22 will be coming to an end shortly and there is little possibility of achieving the target,” a senior official said.
“But this year’s procurement too will be one of the highest in recent years,” he added. Information available from the food and civil supply department shows that government had purchased 63.36 LMT paddy, worth more than ₹12,000 crore from 10.38 lakh farmers at the minimum support price (MSP) till February 15 against the target of 70 lakh LMT.
The paddy purchase is lower than what it was last when the government broke all the previous records by purchasing more than 65 LMT paddy from 13 lakh farmers.
“The total procurement last year turned out to be 14 LMT more than the target fixed for the year 2020-21 with the state government having pulled out all the stops due to farmer’ agitation against the Centre’s three agri laws and their allegation that the Centre was conspiring to do away with the MSP mechanism,” the official said.
The procurement season in western UP has already ended and it will be over in the eastern UP as well within a week.
“For a change, eastern UP is likely to report more paddy purchase than western UP this time. This is because in previous years a large part of the target was met from the paddy purchase in western region where procurement starts earlier than eastern region and the government started going slow in purchasing paddy in the eastern region,” the official pointed out.
“Since procurement has been comparatively low in western UP this time, the government is trying to make up for the deficit in eastern part,” he added.
According to director (statistics), agriculture, Rajesh Gupta overall paddy production had stopped in the state this year due to excess rains and floods in many districts and this, he said might have had impacted paddy production as well.
“The paddy production in the state declined from around 280 LMT last year to 240 LMT this year,” he said adding “Correspondingly, availability of rice also dropped from 171 LMT to 160 LMT.”
A total of 4457 procurement centres had been set up across the state to facilitate direct purchase from farmers at the MSP fixed at ₹1940 per quintal for common variety of paddy and ₹1960 per quintal for higher grade.
The Yogi Adityanath government has often made claims about a record wheat and paddy purchase at the MSP during its regime.
“Our government purchased a record 214.56 lakh MT of paddy worth ₹37825.66 crore from 31,88,529 farmers in just four years against which the SP and the BSP governments together purchased only 238.49 lakh MT of paddy worth ₹28040.98 crore from 18,89,362 farmers in 10 years,” agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi said in Vidhan Parishad recently.
