Wheat procurement crosses 12.6 mt, target 15 mt

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New Delhi, Apr 28 : The government’s aggressive plan to procure wheat to the tune of 15 million tonne during 2008 for building buffer stock and for public distribution system in an effort to stem rising prices has been on target with procurement already crossing 12.6 mt till date.

According to food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, state-owned Food Corporation of India and other agencies have already procured more than 12.6 mt from the major wheat-producing states including Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

“Procuring agencies have already procured close to 95% of the total wheat arrival at various mandis in the major wheat producing states like Haryana and Punjab. We will surpass the target for the procurement with two weeks,” Pawar told Rajya Sabha on Monday while taking part in a discussion on agriculture. The government had initiated wheat procurement on April 14. With the inflation rising alarmingly, higher wheat procurement is expected to cool down the rising trend in the prices of wheat and other essential food items such as rice and cereals, he said.

The Reserve Bank of India in its report on macroeconomic and monetary development has said India’s food grains production is all set for a record high in 2007-08 at 227.3 mt. Food prices firmed up especially during the second half of 2007-08 led by wheat, rice, and oilseeds/edible oils, reflecting surging demand (both consumption demand and demand for non-food uses such as bio-fuels production) and low stocks of major crops, the RBI report said.

In a separate reply in Parliament, Pawar said sugar firms were being provided loans at an interest rate of 4% for setting up projects for production of anhydrous alcohol or ethanol. Pawar said loans are already being provided from Sugar Development Fund to sugar mills, which have their own distilleries for production of anhydrous alcohol or ethanol.

In another reply, minister of state for agriculture Kanti Lal Bhuria said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, the country’s oilseeds production target has been proposed at 318 lakh tonne during 2008-09.

He said the demand for oilseeds in the country was pegged at 40.37 mt during 2004-05, 42.31 mt during 05-06 and 44.34 mt during 06-07. The demand-supply gap in oilseeds, he said, is met through import. In 2006-07, the country imported 42.16 lakh tonne of oilseeds worth Rs 9,416 crore while in 2005-06 the import stood at 42.88 lakh tonne worth Rs 8,961 crore.