NEW DELHI: The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has allayed fears of any problems due to lower wheat procurement this year and expressed confidence in buying a quantity more than the annual requirement under all welfare schemes.
Briefing the media on the achievement of FCI since its inception in 1964, FCI Chairman and Managing Director Ashok Kumar Meena said, “There is no cause for concern about the availability of rice for buffer.” The quantity of rice procured so far is good enough to meet the requirement of welfare schemes, he said.
While the annual requirement of the rice under all welfare schemes is 40-41 million tonnes (mt), the current season’s (October 2023-September 2024) procurement has reached 31.1 mt until January 2. “We are well on course to meet the requirement,” Meena said.
Rice procurement in the first three months since the season began on October 1 has dropped 14 per cent to 29.93 mt from 34.79 mt in the year-ago period. In October-December 2022, rice procurement was 11 per cent higher than 2021 level. Experts see the current year’s purchase may miss the target of 52.13 mt by a big margin.
“One reason for lower procurement is that paddy prices in the open market are also very high. The other reason is the pace of procurement was slow in States like Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh due to assembly elections,” Meena said. The paddy procurement is likely to pick up going forward as these States are about to announce bonus to farmers, he said.
But, in Uttar Pradesh, paddy procurement is sluggish as the open market prices this year remain high, he said. According to the FCI, total foodgrain stock was 67.32 mt, including 32.83 mt of unmilled paddy in terms of rice, as of January 1.
FCI is the central nodal agency that buys rice and wheat to ensure MSP to the farmers and distributes the grains for free to 81 crore poor via ration shops. It also uses surplus grain through the OMSS scheme to boost domestic availability and check prices.
According to FCI, 5.9 mt of wheat has been sold in the open market through weekly e-auction under the OMSS since June 2023, which has helped stabilise the retail prices. There has been negative growth in retail wheat prices on y-o-y basis whereas it about 13 per cent in rice.
As FCI has been offering huge quantity of rice through weekly auction, though offtake is not good, the prices will not increase substantially, he said. There has been a lukewarm response for rice and FCI has been able to sell only 0.15 mt of rice though reserve price is fixed at ₹29 per kg.
Confirming that there is a proposal to launch Bharat rice, similar to Bharat atta and Bharat Dal, Meena refused to share further details. The government has been selling “Bharat Dal” (gram dal) at ₹60/kg and “Bharat atta” at ₹275/10 kg through cooperatives Nafed, NCCF and Kendriya Bhandar. The FCI has informed the food ministry that it has enough rice stock for the scheme if launched. Officials estimate that a maximum of 3 mt will be required for “Bharat rice”.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
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