Wheat procurement touches 30.1 MT till date

The Dollar Business Bureau

The country is looking at good wheat output this year. Wheat procurement is generally done during April to March wheat marketing year. But this year procurement of wheat was taken up a month earlier by the Food Corporation of India.

Till now about 30.1 MT of wheat has been procured by the FCI and other state agencies in the ongoing rabi marketing season of 2017-18. This is far beyond last year's total purchase of 22.9 MT of wheat.

Wheat is procured from the farmers at a minimum support price which is now Rs 1625/quintal a marginal increase of Rs 100/quintal from the price offered last year. The government buys wheat from the farmers at the MSP rate specified to create a buffer stock to meet the PDS demand as well as to trade the excess stock to the buyers in the market.

The government this wheat year has set a procurement target of 33 MT boosted by a record production of the crop.

As per official records so far 11.7MT of wheat has been procured from Punjab, 7.4MT from Haryana, 6.72MT from MP, 3MT from UP and 1.17MT from Rajasthan which is more than suffecient to meet the National Food Security Act (NFSA). Under the NFSA, subsidised wheat and foodgrains are given to the poor through the public distribution system. The annual PDS demand of wheat is 24-25MT.

The government has increased the wheat production target to 97.44 MT for the 2016-17 crop year which higher than 93.50MT of wheat produced in the last crop year.