In Uttar Pradesh, it seems, there are no takers for the government agencies as far as wheat collection is concerned.
In contrast to Punjab, private players are ruling the roost in Uttar Pradesh wheat mandis now. They have already bought a major chunk of wheat that is arriving at mandis.
Out of the 80,000 tonnes of wheat arrived till date, the Central and state agencies were able to procure only 2,717 tonnes.
In Punjab, out of the total 12,88,554 tonnes of wheat arrived in the state mandis up to April 15, about 10,45,243 tonnes (90.5%) has been procured by the government agencies only.
With this situation, Uttar Pradesh is unlikely to meet the wheat procurement target of 16.5 lakh tonnes. If things go at this pace, government agencies may be able to collect around 5 lakh tonnes of wheat this year.
So far the Central procurement agency FCI has been able to procure only 674 tonnes while state agencies have procured 2,043 tonnes of wheat in UP.
A good chunk