Government procurement of rice rises to above 457 lakh tonnes
03-Apr-2025 05:56 PM
New Delhi. Official data shows that in the Kharif marketing season 2024-25, the total government procurement of rice at the national level till March 31, 2025 increased to 457.30 lakh tonnes,
which is about 1 percent more than the procurement of 452.50 lakh tonnes in the same period last year.
Till February 28, the procurement of rice was going ahead by 5 percent, but the pace of procurement slowed down in March.
The central government has estimated the domestic production of rice to reach a peak of 1206.80 lakh tonnes in the Kharif season of 2024-25, of which 38 percent has been procured for the central pool.
Analysts consider the slowdown in the pace of procurement in March as a good sign because there is already a huge stock of rice in the central pool and the government is taking various measures to reduce it.
Under the domestic food security and other welfare schemes, about 410 lakh tons of rice needs to be distributed annually, whereas government procurement has been much more than this and a huge back stock of it is also present.
Now the government procurement season of Rabi season paddy has also formally started from April 1.
Government procurement of Kharif season paddy ended on March 31 in other states of the country except West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand and Tripura. In states like Orissa and Telangana, paddy procurement was expected to continue for a long time but it was ended in March itself.
It is worth noting that paddy equivalent to 457.30 lakh tons of rice has been procured from farmers by government agencies at the minimum support price and it has been allotted to rice millers for custom milling.
A very huge stock of rice is present in the warehouses owned by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The situation has become such that the millers of Punjab want to supply plenty of custom milled rice to the FCI warehouses if the corporation is not showing much interest in accepting the consignments of this rice due to lack of storage facilities.