FCI scales down wheat procurement target

Last year,the FCI and state government-owned agencies purchased close to 39 million tonnes,which was the highest-ever. Except for Rajasthan,the FCI has revised downwards its estimates for all the six wheat-producing states.

The decline in procurement,however,has not set alarm bells ringing as the government had a huge wheat stock of over 24 million tonnes carried forward from last year even before this years procurement season began. In fact,it has come as a relief to the government as less procurement would mean lesser storage woes and consequently lesser cost of storage.

While the government procurement has not matched the estimates it has drawn up,sources in the Food Ministry said that does not mean that there are no takers for the produce. They said private players are aggressively buying from farmers directly. This,they said,could be because the Food Ministry last year did not succumb to pressure and reduce the prices of wheat sold under the Open Market Sale Scheme OMSS to bulk buyers.