The government?s rice procurement drive for the 2012-13 season crossed 19 million tonne on Thursday. This is about one million tonne more than last year?s purchase over the same period.
The rice purchase drive by Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state government agencies, which commenced from October 2012, has picked up pace during the last few weeks after the kharif crop started to arrive in markets across the country. As a result, the government has increased its rice procurement target for the season to 40 million tonne, up from last year’s 35 million tonne.
Punjab and Haryana, the key contributors to the central pool, have also reported an increase in procurement over last year. This year, the two states have contributed 2.5 million tonne and 8.5 million tonne of rice, respectively, to the central pool against 1.9 million tonne and 7.6 million tonne during 2011-12 (October-September).
So far, Andhra Pradesh (2 million tonne), Chhattisgarh (2.9 million tonne) and Orissa (1.1 million tonne) have been other key contributors to the central pool.
This year, because of deficient monsoon, rice procurement in Uttar Pradesh started on a slower note and, till now, the state has contributed just 7.6 lakh tonne to the central government’s procurement drive against 1.6 million tonne over the same period last year.
Andhra Pradesh is expected to contribute more than 9.6 million tonne rice to the central pool during the entire year, against a mere 5 million tonne procured last year. The state grows rice during both kharif and rabi seasons.
In anticipation of a bumper crop, Chhattisgarh is targeting to procure a record volume of grain (in excess of 5 million tonne) in the ongoing kharif marketing season (2012-13). During the previous year, it contributed more than 4.1 million tonne rice to the central pool.