Lucknow, Jun 16 (IANS): The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has broken its own record of wheat procurement by purchasing 53.80 lakh metric tonnes of wheat in the current season.

This is an all time high in wheat procurement with the previous high being 52.92 lakh metric tonne in 2018-2019.

More than 12. 16 lakh farmers have benefitted from this procurement.

The Chief Minister had announced that the state government will continue to procure wheat till farmers come to sell their produce.

The wheat procurement will now continue till June 22.

According to Commissioner Food and Supply Manish Chauhan there are several reasons behind the record wheat purchase this year.

The increased number of purchase centres, the high MSP, no fixed time limit and transparency in the procurement are some of the factors that contributed to the all-time high purchase.

The government had increased the MSP of wheat from Rs 1,925 in 2020-21 to Rs 1,975 in 2021-22.

Besides, the number of procurement centres had also been increased from 5,000 last year to 6,000 this year.

"Despite the pandemic situation, we are purchasing almost one lakh metric tonnes of wheat every day. On June 14, around 1.14 lakh MT was procured from the farmers," said Chauhan.

For the first time, the farmers' have received direct benefits against the sale of their wheat crops without any delay and cuts under the "One Nation, One MSP, One DBT".

The payment is being directly transferred into the bank accounts of farmers within 72 hours of purchase.

To eliminate middlemen in wheat procurement, the state government has introduced the electronic point of purchase (e-PoP) machines ensuring transparency in the purchase of wheat.