The record 14.07 million tonnes procurement by FCI and other state government agencies as on June 1, was out of total arrivals of 15.12 million tonnes at various mandis across the country, officials of the corporation said.

Private traders are estimated to have procured only about one million tonnes of wheat. The earlier highest procurement recorded by FCI was 12.83 tonnes in 1993.

Punjab, the leading wheat producing state in the country led in procurement too with a total of 78.10 lakh tonnes of total arrivals of 79.01 lakh tonnes.

The record procurement has been aided by a bumper crop of over 70 million tonnes and higher minimum support price of Rs 550 a quintal for fair average quality of wheat declared by the centre, officials said.

While the wheat procurement in Haryanatotalled 38.64 lakh tonnes out of the arrivals of 39.98 lakh tonnes, in Uttar Pradesh agencies procured 12.26 lakh tonnes out of total arrivals of 15.49 lakh tonnes, officials said.

In Rajasthan FCI and others procured 6.25 lakh tonnes of wheat from the total arrivals of 7.67 lakh tonnes.

Private traders turned major buyers in Madhya Pradesh by procuring about 3.55 lakh tonnes leaving only 5.39 lakh tonnes to the state-owned agencies.

FCI and other agencies had procured 11.5 million tonnes of wheat last year of the total arrivals of 12 million tonnes, officials said.

Meanwhile, in view of the arrivals of monsoon in the northern part of the country, FCI has started moving the foodgrains on a warfoot basis to other regions where the corporation has additional capacity to store the new crop.

"With the procurement touching an all time record and roller flour millers not showing interest in corporation's offer to sell one million tonnes in the open market, FCI cannot keep the grain in the temporary`cap' storage facility but move them to other parts of the country," they said.

The corporation, which has nearly eight million tonnes of wheat in excess of the mandatory stock requirement has not been able to sell any significant quantity to roller four millers though it had got government nod to sell one million tonnes of wheat to private roller flour millers at prices fixed by the government.

FCI is moving an average of 11,000 tonnes of wheat a day to other regions of the country, officials said.