Wheat procurement by government agencies in Uttar Pradesh continues on a brisk pace with the state so far clocking 100 per cent increase in total purchases at about 3 million tonnes (MT) compared to the previous year. Total wheat procurement in Uttar Pradesh had stood at around 1.6 MT during the same period in 2017. This year, the Yogi Adityanath government is targeting wheat procurement of 5 MT, which corresponds to almost 16 per cent of the country’s wheat procurement target of 32 MT set for the current rabi marketing season. Last year, the state could procure only 50 per cent of its targeted 8 MT, although it was still 5 times of the net procurement of wheat in 2016 when it had stood at a lowly 800,000 tonnes under the Akhilesh Yadav dispensation. The wheat procurement process had started on April 1 and would continue till June 15 even as 60 per cent of the target has already been achieved.