Uttar Pradesh clocks 250% rise in paddy procurement at 3.5 mn tonnes

Farmers paid Rs 52 bn through direct benefit transfer

Uttar Pradesh continues to perform robustly in ongoing paddy procurement with total purchases in the current kharif marketing season hitting almost 3.5 million tonnes (MT) mark.

This year, the Yogi Adityanath government is eyeing procurement of 5 MT of paddy, which is an ambitious target considering the state could purchase only about 70 per cent or 3.5 MT of the targetted 5 MT of paddy last season.

The procurement centres established by the state agencies and Food Corporation of India (FCI) directly purchase paddy from farmers against the standing Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 1,550 per quintal (100 kg).