The Centre plans to sell around 6 million tonne of wheat in the open market to cool off prices, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday.
?We will finalise the price at which wheat has to be sold and also other modalities of the sale in the next few days,? Pawar told reporters on the sidelines of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research foundation day function here. He said the government is concerned over the spike in prices of wheat in some places and would do everything possible to reduce them.
The government had earlier announced that it would sell wheat in the open market through states to bring down prices in some quarters.
The states would be allocated additional quantities of wheat over and above their monthly requirement under the public distribution system for open market sale. In India, the Union government allocates around 1 to 1.2 million tonne of wheat per month to the state from the central pool for public distribution programme.
On sowing of kharif crops, Pawar said, apart from soybean, jowar and cotton, sowing of other crops have been satisfactory.
As per latest government data, till July 11, cotton has been planted in around 3.92 million hectares, down 38% from last year, while sugarcane has been planted in around 4.32 million hectares, down from 5.28 million a year-earlier. ?We are concerned that cotton yields this year may fall because of late sowing by farmers,? Pawar added. India?s average cotton yield has risen to around 553 kilograms per hectare in the year that ends on September, from around 521 kgs per hectare.
India grows paddy, oilseeds and maize during the kharif sowing season, apart from sugarcane and cotton.
?Sowing of most crops is almost 30% more than last year and we are hopeful that for other crops sowing will pick up as soon as monsoon becomes more active,? he added.
He also said the government plans to meet its rice procurement target of 27.5 million tonne by end of this season in September. ?We have already procured significant quantities of rice from farmers and hope to complete the process in the next couple of months,? Pawar said. As per latest figures, India?s state-run agencies have procured around 26.49 million tonne of rice from farmers till date, which is around 1.73 million tonne more than the same period last year.