Wheat procurement for the central pool has hit a seven-year high this season, with Punjab and Haryana contributing a lion?s share to the procurement programme, meant to beef up the buffer stocks. Punjab?s share is more than 50% of the total wheat procured this year.
Of the total procurement in Punjab, 95.1% had gone into the central pool and 2.3% into the state pool. Private millers had lifted less than 2% of the total arrival in mandis.
Haryana deputy chief minister Chander Mohan said the newspersons the state contributed 51.92 lakh tonne of wheat?18.42 tonne more than the corresponding period last year?s?to the central pool. The total wheat arrival in the Haryana mandis was 52.63 lakh tonne so far and out of this 51.92 lakh tonne was purchased by the six government procuring agencies while traders bought the remaining 70,964 tonne?a mere 1% of the total arrival.
Interestingly, last season, wheat arrival was 37.37 lakh tonne, with government agencies procuring 33.50 lakh tonne. The arrival of wheat this season has beaten the record of the previous three years.
In Haryana, Hafed had procured 19.17 lakh tonne, food & supplies department 10.75 lakh tonne, Food Corporation of India 7.82 lakh tonne, Haryana Warehousing Corporation 4.84 lakh tonne, Confed 4.76 lakh tonne and Haryana Agro Industries Corporation 4.56 lakh tonne. Traders had purchased only 70,964 tonne. Sirsa district saw the largest arrival at 7.63 lakh tonne, followed by Karnal at 6.02 lakh tonne, Fatehabad at 5.84 lakh tonne, Kaithal at 5.49 lakh tonne, Jind at 5.48 lakh tonne, Kurukshetra at 4.63 lakh tonne, Hisar at 3.45 lakh tonne, Faridabad at 2.76 lakh tonne, Panipat at 2.25 lakh tonne, Sonipat at 2.03 lakh tonne, Ambala at 1.61 lakh tonne, Rohtak at 1.07 lakh tonne and Panchkula at 19,563 tonne.
A major factor that seems to have helped the procurement is the higher minimum support price of Rs 1,000 a quintal, extended by the Centre this year. The higher support price, coupled with market fees, value-added tax and commission for arthiyas (commission agents) especially in Punjab and Haryana, made it a tough task for the private trade to procure wheat from these two states. The big private players sourced just 8% of their wheat from Punjab (0.76 lt) and Haryana (1.29). Enquiries reveal that till May 21, FCI and state agencies procured 199.50 lakh tonne wheat, raising the expectations that the 2001-02 record would be broken this time.