- MP government has been given a target to purchase one crore metric tons of wheat
Kanhaiya Lodhi, Bhopal
The Central Government has given the target of purchasing one crore metric tonnes of wheat to the Madhya Pradesh government in the current Rabi season. To fulfill this target, the Madhya Pradesh government had sought permission from the Central Government to give a bonus of Rs 125 per quintal to the farmers; the Central Government also gave this concession to Madhya Pradesh. Even after this, Madhya Pradesh will not be able to achieve the target in wheat procurement this time.
According to the situation prevailing till now, even if Madhya Pradesh buys 50 to 60 metric tonnes of wheat, it will be a big achievement. The process of wheat procurement has started from 15th to 20th March at different places in Madhya Pradesh, this procurement is to be done till 20th May. So far only 35 lakh metric tonnes of wheat has been procured during this period. Now only 21 days are left for wheat procurement and we are still about 65 lakh metric tonnes short of the target. In such a situation, there are no chances of achieving this target in the coming days.
Now there is no option other than extending the date of procurement – In view of the low government procurement of wheat in the state, the state government is now considering increasing the time of procurement. It is expected that the date will be extended after the current period ends on May 20. First it will be extended for one week and then later this purchase will be done till 31st May. That means almost the entire month of May would have been purchased.
Permission to give bonus received after 9 years. Earlier, the Central Government had banned the states from giving any kind of bonus other than the support price, but after almost 9 years, the Central Government has made concessions in this matter. The Madhya Pradesh government had requested the Central Government to allow giving a bonus of Rs 125 per quintal to the farmers.
3 lakh metric tons will have to be purchased every day
If Madhya Pradesh has to meet the Centre’s target, then it will have to purchase 3 lakh metric tonnes of wheat every day in the remaining days, which does not seem practical now. Till now 38 days have passed since wheat procurement started, during this period the average daily procurement has not reached even one lakh metric ton, hence it is almost impossible to reach the figure of 3 lakh metric ton per day in the coming days.
Why are purchases decreasing?
If the farmers of the state are not reaching the markets to sell wheat, then the main reason behind this is the huge difference between the government procurement and open market prices of wheat. There are different prices of wheat in the open market, it ranges from Rs 2000 per quintal to about Rs 3700 per quintal, The low quality of wheat is of low price but the price of normal and better quality wheat is higher than the support price in the open market. This difference can be understood only by the fact that while Sharbati wheat of Sehore is priced at Rs 3700 per quintal in the open market, it will get only Rs 2400 per quintal in government procurement under the support price.
That means there is a difference of up to Rs 1300 per quintal. Similarly, there is a difference of at least Rs 100 per quintal in the prices of different quality wheat.
