Kharif Marketing Season 2024-25: A crucial meeting was held on August 30, 2024 with State Food Secretaries and Food Corporation of India (FCI) to discuss arrangements for procurement of crops in ensuing Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2024-25 as the Centre fixed kharif rice procurement target at 485 lakh tonnes for the 2024-25 marketing year starting October.
In the current 2023-24 marketing year (October-September), the government procured 463 lakh tonnes of kharif rice. It may be noted that paddy is grown in both kharif and rabi seasons. The meeting was chaired by Secretary, Department of Food & Public Distribution (DFPD), Government of India.
An official release said that various factors impacting procurement such as weather forecast, production estimates, and readiness of States for procurement operations were reviewed during the meeting.
After deliberations, the estimates for paddy procurement (Kharif Crop) during ensuing KMS 2024-25 have been fixed at 485 LMT in terms of rice compared to procurement of 463 LMT (Kharif Crop) during KMS 2023-24.
A quantity of 19.00 LMT of coarse grains /millets (Shree Anna) has also been estimated for procurement by the States during the KMS 2024-25 (Kharif crop) which is a substantial increase compared to procurement of 6.60 LMT during KMS 2022-23 (Kharif crop). States/UTs were advised to focus on procurement of millets for diversification of crops and enhanced nutrition in dietary patterns.
The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary/Secretary (Food) of States/UTs as well as officers from FCI, India Meteorological Department and Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. State-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI) is the government's nodal agency for procurement and distribution of foodgrains.
Several ongoing initiatives of Department of Food and Public Distribution which inter-alia included Supply Chain Optimization of Public Distribution System, infrastructure improvement in Procurement Centers, Jan Poshan Kendras and workflow automation for release of food subsidy to the States etc were also discussed in the meeting.
