Staff Reporter
Guwahati: The paddy procurement drive for Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2025–26 (1st crop) is underway in Assam, with 37,136 farmers having applied for registration. Official data confirms that so far, 35,958 eligible farmers have successfully registered.
The registered farmers have declared that a total of 5,10,617 metric tonnes (MT) of paddy is available for sale to procurement agencies. As of January 23, as many as 9,697 farmers have sold 99,660.46 MT of paddy under the ongoing procurement drive.
For the current season, the state has fixed a total procurement target of 7,55,500 MT, which has been distributed among four agencies. The Assam Food & Civil Supplies Corporation Limited (AFCSCL) has been assigned the highest share of 5,88,000 MT, followed by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) with 93,000 MT, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) with 69,000 MT, and the Assam State Agricultural Marketing Board (ASAMB) with 5,500 MT.
Meanwhile, the Centre has increased the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy for the 2025–26 marketing season. The MSP for the Common variety has been raised to Rs 2,369 per quintal, an increase of Rs 69 from Rs 2,300 per quintal in KMS 2024–25. The MSP for the Grade-A variety has been enhanced to Rs 2,389 from Rs 2,320 per quintal last season.
Looking back at KMS 2024–25, the state procured 8,50,564.54 MT of paddy against a target of 9,53,983 MT, benefiting 66,530 farmers across Assam. A total of 99,142 farmers had applied for registration during the season, of whom 94,758 were successfully registered. The registered farmers had declared 12,32,437 MT of paddy as available for sale—around 2.79 lakh MT more than the government’s procurement target.
Also read: Assam Paddy Procurement: 7.55 Lakh MT Target for KMS 2025–26