Madhya Pradesh, where govt purchase has been nearly 33% less than the procurement last year, has extended the procurement period to May 31.However, Punjab and Haryana recorded higher purchases than last year of 124 lakh tonnes and 71.4 lakh tonnes respectively.
Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials said they were confident of total procurement touching 270 lakh tonnes against earlier estimate of 300-310 lakh tonnes, which was arrived at after consultation with states.
“The current level of procurement and the stock that we have will be more than enough to meet the food security requirement of providing free foodgrain to 80 crore poor under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojna and other welfare schemes. We will also have good stock for market intervention to check prices, if need arises,” said a govt official.
TOI has learnt that govt agencies are trying to figure out the reason behind less procurement in MP. The state won’t be able to achieve the initial target of 80 lakh tonnes.
Though there has been a more than four-fold jump in wheat procurement in Uttar Pradesh and 2.5 times in Rajasthan, their contribution to the central pool is hardly 18 lakh tonnes. Govt had expected procurement of around 50 lakh tonnes of wheat from UP, Rajasthan and Bihar. Officials said the procurement period in UP is likely to be extended till June so that more farmers can get the benefit of MSP.
Sources said with the current level of procurement, there is hardly any scope for govt to lift the restriction on wheat export this year as well. It also remains to be seen whether the Centre will restore the wheat-rice ratio as it was before May 2022. Govt had changed the policy to allocate more rice instead of wheat following a drastic reduction in foodgrain procurement in 2022 due to lower production and record exports that year.