Madhya Pradesh has achieved record government wheat procurement of more than 10.42 million tonnes, surpassing the Centre's revised procurement target of 10 million tonnes. According to Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Minister Govind Singh Rajput, the state purchased wheat at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) from 1.34 million farmers. The state now ranks second after Punjab in terms of government wheat procurement, as reported by Business Standard.
In the state, wheat was first procured from small and marginal farmers, with 809,990 marginal and small farmers selling more than 3.4 million tonnes of wheat. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav stated that this marks the first time priority was given to small and marginal farmers. Farmers were paid ₹2,585 per quintal as MSP along with a bonus of ₹40 per quintal, taking the total to ₹2,625 per quintal. So far, farmers have received payments amounting to ₹23,708 crore for the wheat procured, according to Business Standard.
The central government had initially set a target of 7.8 million tonnes of wheat procurement for Madhya Pradesh. However, in view of the bumper wheat harvest, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav wrote to Union Minister Prahlad Joshi requesting that the procurement target be raised to 13 million tonnes. Subsequently, the Centre permitted additional procurement of 2.2 million tonnes, raising the target to 10 million tonnes, as reported by Business Standard.
