The authorities’s wheat procurement within the present 12 months fell by greater than 54% on 12 months to 18.65 million tonne (mt) until Tuesday.
With an arrival of solely round 81,000 tonne of wheat on Tuesday in mandies largely in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, buy of the grain by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and different businesses on the Minimum Support Price could not contact 19 mt towards 43.34 mt bought final 12 months throughout rabi advertising season (April-June).
This means the purchases of the cereal by the federal government at MSP would hit a 13-year low this 12 months
In the final 10 days, solely 0.5 mt of wheat was procured by businesses regardless of the federal government imposing restriction on wheat exports on May 13. Food ministry final month had revised downward the wheat procurement goal from 44 mt to 19.5 mt for the present rabi advertising season (2022-23).
As on May 15, FCI had a wheat inventory of 31.15 mt towards the buffer norm for July 1 of 27.58 mt. The inventory is enough to satisfy requirement of wheat underneath the National Food Security Act and the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (until September 30).
Punjab and Haryana, which contributed near 74% of the overall wheat procurement to this point, closed their procurement operations on Tuesday. In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, procurement of wheat by businesses would proceed for the following two weeks.
In Punjab, wheat procurement by authorities businesses ended with purchases of simply 9.62 mt, down 1 / 4, on 12 months. The goal was 13 mt.
In Haryana, 4.14 mt of wheat has been procured by businesses, whereas in Madhya Pradesh, greater than 4.58 mt has been bought from farmers underneath MSP operations. Last 12 months, the amount of wheat procurement by authorities businesses in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh was 8.49 mt and 12.77 mt, respectively.
In different wheat-growing states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Gujarat, the amount of grain procurement this 12 months has seen a pointy decline. In Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, solely 0.29 mt and 0.002 mt of wheat has been bought from farmers by authorities businesses to this point towards 3.97 mt and 1.9 mt procured, respectively, a 12 months in the past.
Wheat procurement operations in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh will proceed until June 15 whereas buy operations will probably be accomplished in Rajasthan on June 10.
Last month, meals secretary Sudhanshu Pandey had stated the decrease wheat output, coupled with non-public buy from farmers by exporters and merchants holding on to the shares, has led to sharp fall in procurement.
On the decrease quantity of wheat procurement, the meals ministry had cited elements resembling farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat promoting to merchants and exporters at `2,100-2,400 a quintal towards the MSP of `2,015 a quintal previous to the federal government imposing ban on cargo on May 13. Farmers are additionally holding some portions, anticipating greater costs of wheat after some months.
The authorities had revised the estimate of wheat manufacturing within the 2021-22 crop 12 months (July-June) to 106 mt, down from its February projection of 111.32 mt within the third advance estimates of foodgrain manufacturing launched final month.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”