Wheat procurement by govt agencies touch 341.56 lakh tonnes; surpasses last year's figures

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution on Monday revealed that procurement of wheat by government agencies surpassed last year's figure of 341.31 lakh tonnes to touch 341.56 lakh tonnes on May 24 amid the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent lockdown.The Ministry revealed that while wheat harvesting generally started towards March-end and procurement in the first week of April, due to the emergency posed by the Coronavurs pandemic, the government gave relaxations to start agricultural and related activities during the lockdown period so that procurement could start from April 15. 

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The Ministry revealed that many challenges were undertaken to ensure that procurement is done in a safe manner during the pandemic. This was achieved through a multi-pronged strategy of awareness creation, social distancing and deployment of technology. The number of purchase centres was increased substantially reducing the farmer footfalls in individual purchase centres, it said.

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Along with this, new centres were also 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 3681, 599 to 1,800 in Haryana and from 3,545 to 4,494 in Madhya Pradesh. Here farmers were equipped with latest technologies, including specific slots where they could bring in their produce to avoid overcrowding. Strict social distancing norms were followed and sanitisation activities were undertaken regularly.

Challenges faced during procurement

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs revealed that three major challenges were faced during this mass procurement task. The first was the lack of availability of jute bags since all jute mills were closed. This was tackled by using more plastic bags, supplemented by used bags with strict quality conditions. The second was unseasonal rains in all the major producing states leading to wheat getting exposed to water. Here, the government and Food Corporation of India (FCI) intervened to ensure quality and standards were met. The last and the most challenging problem was the labour supply position amid the fear of the pandemic. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs stated that this was addressed by taking a series of confidence-building measures at the local level by the state administration where labour was provided with adequate protection safety gears like masks and sanitisers.

(With ANI Inputs)

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