Govt’s wheat procurement surpasses last year’s level, touches 34.16 million tonnes

Wheat harvesting generally starts towards end of March and procurement commences in the first week of April every year. However, with the imposition of national lockdown with effect from midnight of 24-25 march 2020, all operations came to a standstill. The crop had ripened by then and was ready for harvesting. Considering this, Government of India gave relaxation to start agricultural and related activities during the lockdown period, and the procurement could start from 15 April 2020 in most of the procuring states. 

Despite the delay and the challenge of ensuring procurement in a safe manner during the pandemic, state agencies could achieve the feat by increasing the number of procurement centres by adopting a multi-pronged strategy of awareness creation, social distancing and deployment of technology. 

While the number of purchase centres was increased substantially, procurement agencies managed to reduce the farmer footfalls in individual purchase centres. New centres were set up using every facility available at gram panchayat level and the numbers were increased sharply in the major procuring states like Punjab where it went up from 1,836 to 3,681, from 599 to 1,800 in Haryana and from 3,545 to 4,494 in Madhya Pradesh. Using technology, farmers were provided specific dates and slots to bring their produce which helped in avoiding overcrowding. Strict social distancing norms were followed and sanitisation activities were undertaken regularly. In Punjab, every farmer was allotted specific spaces earmarked for dumping of stocks and no one else was allowed to enter those areas. Only people who were directly associated were allowed to be present during daily auctions.

In addition to the threat of spread of virus, there were three major challenges faced by the procuring agencies in wheat procurement. As all the jute mills were closed, production of jute bags used for filling of procured wheat stopped, creating a major crisis. This was tackled by using more plastic bags, supplemented by used bags with very strict quality conditions. Through continuous monitoring and timely actions, it could be ensured that the procurement was not stopped due to lack of packaging materials anywhere in the country.

There were unseasonal rains in all the major producing states leading to wheat getting exposed to water. This posed a major threat to the farmers as such stocks could not be procured under normal specifications. Government of India and Food Corporation of India (FCI) intervened immediately and after conducting detailed scientific analysis, specifications were re-fixed to ensure that no farmer is put to distress while making sure that the produce so procured meets the minimum quality requirements of the consumers.

The third challenge of tight labour supply position was addressed by taking a series of confidence building measures at the local level by the state administration. Labour was provided with adequate protection safety gears like masks, sanitisers etc and other precautionary measures were also taken to ensure their safety.

With the concerted and well-coordinated efforts by Government of India, FCI, state governments and their agencies, procurement of wheat could be undertaken very smoothly in all surplus states, helping farmers and replenishing stocks in the central pool, says an agriculture ministry release.