Uttar Pradesh to purchase wheat at MSP till farmers’ stocks last

The Uttar Pradesh government is gearing up to purchase wheat from farmers till their stocks last. The purchase will start from April 1 on the fixed minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,975 per quintal for the 2021-22 season, an increase of Rs 50 per quintal than last year.

Speaking to FE, Uttar Pradesh food commissioner Manish Chauhan said 6,000 procurement centres will be opened across the state by the Food Department and other purchasing agencies.

“This year, the government has not fixed any target for wheat procurement. Instead, it has been decided that we will continue to buy wheat on the increased MSP till farmers’ stock last. Farmers can sell as much wheat as they want on MSP between April 1 and June 15,” he said, adding that to keep middlemen out of the procurement process, the government has made registration mandatory for farmers on the portal of the food and civil supplies department.

For those farmers who are willing to sell more than 100 quintals of wheat to the government agencies, the revenue department will verify them and to ensure transparency, the government has decided that the entire wheat purchasing will be done through biometric authentication through e-PoS machines in order to keep the middlemen out.

The state government will also be geo-tagging the purchase centres and storage warehouses.

It may be mentioned that while the wheat procurement target in 2020-21 was 55 lakh MT, the actual purchase was 35.76 lakh metric tonne (MT) only.

“We are planning for creating extra storage spaces in case we get more wheat than last year. We are looking at setting temporary sheds at government factories and sugar mill complexes. Additionally, as a short-term measure, we are also considering inter district and inter state movement of the stock,” he said.