Procurement of wheat from farmers by Government agencies has touched an all-time record figure on 16.06.2020, when total procurement for the Central pool reached 382 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) surpassing the earlier record of 381.48 LMT achieved during 2012-13. This has been accomplished during the trying times of Covid-19 pandemic when the whole country was under lockdown.
The commencement of procurement was delayed by a fortnight due to the first lockdown and was kicked off only from 15th April in most of the wheat surplus states as against the standard 1st April. Extraordinary efforts have been made by state governments and all government procuring agencies led by Food Corporation of India (FCI) to ensure that wheat is procured from farmers without any delay and in a safe manner. The number of purchase centers was increased from 14,838 to 21,869 this year by opening procurement centers in all possible locations, in addition to traditional mandis. This has helped to reduce farmers’ footfall in mandis and ensured proper social distancing. Technological solutions were deployed to regulate the daily inflows into mandis through token systems. These measures, along with actions on the ground for regular sanitizing, earmarking of dumping areas for each farmer etc, ensured that none of the food grain procurement centers became Covid-19 hotspot anywhere in the country.
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