Rice procurement in Punjab and Haryana — two key States for the Central Pool stock maintained by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) — has ended with a 7.4 per cent drop to 151.52 lakh tonnes (lt) against 163.63 lt in 2023. The government had set a target to buy 164 lt this year amid a bumper crop. There is no extension of procurement until now.

Rice procurement in Punjab, the largest contributor of the grain to the Central Pool stock, was 115.53 lt as of November 30, the last date of purchase which commenced from October 1. It is down 6.9 per cent from 124.14 lt last year. In Haryana, where the procurement ended on November 15, after commencing on September 27, the Government purchased 35.99 lt, which is 8.9 per cent lower from 39.49 lt a year ago.

BIhar target raised

The government has raised the target to buy 492.11 lt of rice from the kharif-grown crop in the 2024-25 marketing season (October-September) from across the country after an upward revision made for Bihar. The target was 521.27 lt for kharif 2023-24. The total rice procurement was 525.37 lt from both kharif and rabi crops in 2023-24 and 569.4 lt in 2022-23.

The official purchase of rice from across the country reached 200.70 lt as of December 3, down by 2.4 per cent from 205.75 lt a year ago. The rice procurement was 20 per cent lower until October 31.

There has been a substantial increase in purchases by Andhra Pradesh where it has reached 3.97 lt until December 3 from 1.42 lt a year ago after the procurement started on October 1. The government purchase will continue until March 31, 2025, in the State. Chhattisgarh is another State where the purchase is 38 per cent up at 13.18 lt (9.55 lt) after the government started buying from November 14, advancing it from the usual December 1 schedule.

UP buys rise

Uttar Pradesh has also seen 25 per cent rise in purchases to 9.24 lt as against 7.4 lt in the corresponding period last year. Both western (at 5.2 lt) and eastern (at 4.04 lt) parts of the State have reported higher purchase. Uttarakhand, on the other hand, has seen rice procurement to drop 18.5 per cent to 3.3 lt from 4.05 lt.

But, procurement in Tamil Nadu started from September 1 and has reached 3.46 lt, which is a 6.5 per cent fall from 3.7 lt a year ago. Telangana’s rice procurement which was trailing earlier, has now increased by 2.5 per cent to 14.13 lt from 13.79 lt.

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