In view of the lockdown imposed in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, Gujarat Government will start the procurement of wheat as per the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for over a month from April 27. “The buying of wheat will begin from April 27 and for that purpose, the farmers have to register themselves from April 27-May 10,” said Ashwini Kumar, Secretary to the Chief Minister adding that the procurement will continue till May 31. Wheat will be bought at 19-odd godowns of the civil supplies department.
The farmers will be informed through an SMS after which they can visit the purchasing centres at the allotted time.
“So far, 29,100 farmers have registered themselves,” Kumar said adding that these registrations happened during March before the lockdown was announced.
Earlier, the state government had asked farmers to get registered between March 1-31, 2020 and the government had planned to purchase wheat from March 16-31.
“However, due to the lockdown, the buying process was suspended from March 24,” the official said.
“Around 27,800 factories employing 1.8 lakh workers have started operations in Gujarat s” from 20th April. Kumar said. Most of these units are in Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Kutch, Bharuch and Vadodara districts.
“Three types of permissions that have been given to the industries. In some districts, industries have been given online permissions, while at some places it is offline. We have also given blanket clearances,” the official said.
“The government had declared to buy wheat at an MSP of Rs 1,925 per quintal in March. At present, Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) are taking wheat from farmers at an average rate of Rs 1,750 / quintal,” said Sagar Rabari, the head of Khedut Ekta Manch.
This purchase by the state government is in addition to those being bought by APMCs across Gujarat since April 15. “Today 120 APMCs are functional where gram, sesame, castor, wheat and other produce are being bought. Till Monday, over 1.34 lakh quintals of agricultural produce has been bought by these APMCs which is largely wheat (85,000 quintals), castor ( 37000 quintals).
