FCI’s wheat procurement drive ends, 27.6 MT bought

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has wound up wheat procurement drive in key growing states for the marketing season 2015-16 after purchasing more than 27.6 million tonne of grain since April, which is marginally lower than 28 million tonne procured last year.

The central agency had set a procurement target of 30 million tonne.

This season there was an expectation of lower purchase by the government agencies after unseasonal rains in March adversely impacted the quality of crop in states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

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“The procurement picked up pace after the government relaxed quality norms for the grain purchase and the procurement operations would be officially completed in the next few days,” a food ministry official told FE.

The official said that with the exception of Rajasthan, where farmers are still bringing in small quantity of the grain, the wheat procurement drive has been completed in key growing states — Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the FCI’s wheat stock levels have gone up to more than 40 million tonne at the start of this month while as per buffer norms, the agency should have a stock of 27.5 million tonne on July 1.

After a sluggish start in April, the food ministry, following the request from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, had given relaxation in quality norms of wheat with respect to luster loss and increase in quantum of shriveled and broken grains being purchased from the farmers by agencies.

Punjab, which had contributed more than 11.6 million tonne wheat to the central pool last year, has contributed 9.9 million tonne this season.

Haryana, a key contributor to the central grain pool, which had scaled down its wheat procurement target to 6.5 million tonne from 7 million tonne, has purchased 6.7 million tonne of grain.

Madhya Pradesh, which carries out its own wheat procurement on behalf of FCI, has purchased 7.2 million tonne of grain which is marginally higher than previous year.

Other key contributors to the central pool for wheat include Rajasthan (1.2 million tonne) and Uttar Pradesh (2.2 million tonne).