The Procurement of wheat by government agencies surpassed last year’s figures of 341.31 lakh tonnes to touch 341.56 lakh tonnes yesterday, overcoming all hindrances created due to the spread of COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown.
Wheat harvesting generally starts towards end of March and procurement commences in the first week of April every year. However, with the imposition of lockdown from 25th March, all operations came to a standstill. The crop had ripened by then and was ready for harvesting. Considering it, Centre gave relaxation to start agricultural and related activities during the lockdown period and the procurement started from 15th of April in most of the procuring states.
The biggest challenge was to ensure that procurement is done in a safe manner during the pandemic. It 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.