With the state-owned agencies like Food Corporation of India (FCI) among others, massive wheat procurement drive for the current rabi marketing season virtually come an end, non-traditional states like Bihar and Gujarat have made significant contribution to procurement process.
According to data, Bihar and Gujarat have contributed 4.5 lakh tonne and 4.1 lakh tonne of wheat respectively, against a negligible amount last year.
While Punjab and Haryana still continue to provide 15 million tonne (MT) out of total 22.5 MT procured by agencies till date, many states such as Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh have started contributing to the procurement. 14 states and union territories have contributed to the drive this year.
This year, apart from traditional wheat producing states such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, even Uttarakhand has contributed 84,308 tonne of wheat while Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra have contributed 1,181 tonne and 10,345 tonne respectively.
This massive wheat procurement is more than doubled as compared to last year. During 2006-07 and 2007-08, the government had procured only 9.2 MT and 11.1 MT respectively. This forced the government to import wheat.
The government had imported 1.8 MT and 5.5 MT of wheat during 2005-06 and 2006-07 respectively.
The government had set a procurement target of 15 MT for the current year for ensuring enough wheat for the buffer stock and public distribution system.
The government?s wheat procurement drive has been declining since 2001-02, when the FCI and state agencies had lifted about 20.6 MT of wheat. In subsequent years, the procurement saw a downward trend.
Despite huge procurement, the FCI officials have claimed that there will not be any storage problems as FCI has about 24 MT capacity. ?There is no storage crunch as the combined storage capacities of FCI and state agencies is close to 50 MT,? a senior FCI official said.