When the procurement season ended on Tuesday,Madhya Pradesh had created a record of sorts by procuring 48.40 lakh MT wheat,nearly 10 times more than the 2008 volumes. Though Punjab and Haryana are far ahead,no other state has registered such a phenomenal increase over the last few years as this central Indian state has done. Procurement has shot up dramatically mainly due to the populist measure of Rs 100 per quintal bonus initiated by the state government a few years ago. Given over and above the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,120,the state bonus has proved to be an effective carrot for wheat growers to come to the mandi. The Centre had midway through the process announced its own bonus of Rs 50,which helped farmers to shun traders and private companies that used to buy large quantities earlier. Private players had more than enough reason to tap the markets in neighbouring states where the commodity was cheaper than Madhya Pradeshs Rs 1,270 per quintal. The record volumes have,however,resulted in an equally big problem,forcing the administration to tap everything from closed theatres to religious places to schools to store the grains. Unseasonal rains and administrative inefficiency in part saw thousands of tonnes of the precious grains rotting,spilling or going waste. The present forecast says that monsoon is likely to hit the state by June 15. With barely two weeks left for first monsoon rains,the state has a tough job ahead transporting and safely storing lakhs of tonnes of grain. The state government has passed the buck to the Centre,saying that the latter has failed to lift the surplus a condition in the MoU with the Centre. The Centre has responded by saying that it would lift the quota at appropriate time,but till then its the state governments responsibility. The Centre has said that it was busy lifting quotas from other states. The state never had enough storage space in the first place,but the record volumes have exposed the inadequacy so badly that the government is at a loss to handle the situation. This years procurement surpassed even the state governments expectations. The state bonus had seen its share of irregularities in the last couple of years with farmers from neighbouring states spiriting their produce in MP before the government said that it had made the process stringent. The insistence on loan book and mandatory bank accounts to facilitate direct transfer of money did not affect the volumes in any way,though it impacted some farmers who could not produce the requisite documents. A whopping Rs 5,262 crore has already been deposited in the accounts of the farmers. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan giving bonus in keeping with his pro-farmer image was his idea admitted that the state had no space to store 12.50 lakh MT. Despite knowing that its storage capacity was far less,the state revised the procurement target twice: from 35 lakh MT to 40 lakh MT and then to 45 lakh MT and eventually ended up procuring more. Beneficiaries of the PDS have been asked to lift their quota of four months in one go to ease pressure on storage and government employees have been given grain in advance. The government claimed it succeeded in keeping middlemen at bay and saving farmers from getting misguided as was the common practice earlier. Yet,the process was chaotic with long queues at the mandis while complaints of irregularities continued to pour in throughout the season despite the government maintaining it otherwise. Cellphone -owning farmers in Harda and Bhind districts were better off,as the mandi administration sent them SMS alerting them about when their turn to arrive at the mandi was likely to come. These farmers had registered themselves. The government says that the facility will be used widely in the next season. Unlike the previous years,only two agencies,State Civil Supplies Corporation and State Cooperative Marketing Federation,were involved in the procurement. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) kept away from the process. Warehousing Corporation,another state agency that used to be involved in procurement,was given the responsibility of only storage this time.
