With rice procurement starting in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh earlier this week, the government’s drive to purchase a record 40 million tonnes of rice from farmers during 2012-13 has picked up pace.
Since the purchase operations for the year started in October 1, Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state government-owned agencies have purchased more than 10.2 million tonne of rice mostly from Punjab and Haryana till Friday.
As per the latest data, agencies have lifted more than 7.7 mt of rice in Punjab, which is more than last year’s purchase of 7.3 mt during same period.
Similarly in Haryana, more than 2.4 mt of rice had been purchased from farmers against 1.8 mt lifted during same period last year.?Farmers are still bringing in produce from mandis in Punjab and Haryana and the procurement by agencies would continue their operations for the next few weeks,? an FCI official told FE.
The official said purchase operations have just began in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. ?Procurement is expected to commence in Orissa and other key contributing states in December,? he said.
Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa contribute significantly to the country’s rice procurement drive. As the government has increased rice procurement target for 2012-13 to 40 million tonne from 35 mt in the previous year, Andhra Pradesh is expected to contribute more than 9.6 mt rice to the central pool against only 5 mt procured in the last year. For the 2011-12 season, the FCI and state agencies had lifted more than 34.9 million tonne of rice from farmers which would be meant for distribution through Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and for maintaining buffer stocks and strategic reserve norms.
Besides, FCI also keeps foodgrains under the strategic reserve norm and for distribution to armed forces.
The Cabinet committee on Economic Affairs has approved hiking of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy (common) variety, which has been fixed at R1,250 per quintal ? an increase of R170 per quintal from last year.Meanwhile, the government’s wheat stocks held with FCI and other agencies have been reported at 28.9 mt at the start of the month, which is far above the strategic reserve and buffer stocks norms.
As per the norm, the government’s rice stocks as on October 1 should be 23 mt.Due to deficient monsoon in many of the key rice growing areas, kharif rice production is expected to be more than 85 million tonne during 2012-13.
The cumulative rice production during 2011-12 was at 103.41 million tonne (mt), out of which 90.75 mt were grown in the kharif season.The FCI has asked for an additional sum of R14,300 crore for the current fiscal as the corporation is expected to purchase 24 million tonne of rice in the current kharif marketing season against earlier estimate of 17.5 mt.
