Govt optimistic on wheat-purchase target

Eyes 26-28 mn tonnes despite crop damage

The Centre plans to procure 26-28 million tonnes of wheat in the 2015-16 crop marketing season because of relaxation in purchase guidelines.

It had targeted purchasing 30.02 million tonnes of wheat from farmers. But there was a danger of falling significantly short of target due to widespread damage to standing crop because of unseasonal rain and hail.

However, officials now said those fears seemed unfounded. In the absence of any big buying by private and state agencies as well as Food Corporation of India (FCI), the government might end up purchasing 26-28 million tonnes of wheat, with a strong possibility of it being on the higher side.

"We thought that wheat procurement might be significantly less than last year due to extensive damage to the standing crop," a senior official with the food ministry said. "But ever since the quality norms were relaxed, there has been an upsurge in purchases. Overall procurement might be much nearer to the target."

He said the trend, which was negative in the first 15 days of 2015-15 procurement season that started in April, had shown a significant improvement in the past 10 days.

Data sourced from the Department of Consumer Affairs showed that till April 30, FCI and state agencies purchased 18.2 million tonnes of wheat, against 18.5 million tonnes in the year-ago period.

In Punjab, wheat procurement has been around seven million tonnes, 400,000 tonnes less than that in the year-ago period. In Haryana, procurement was more in 2015-16 compared to the year-ago period.

Between April 1 and 30, 2015-16, wheat procurement in Haryana was 5.67 million tonnes, against 5.55 million tonnes last year.

According to government estimates, standing rabi crop on almost 18.9 million hectares was impacted due to the recent unseasonsal rain - the maximum damage was of wheat crop.

The agriculture ministry said wheat production in 2015-16 might drop 4-5 per cent - which means that as compared to the first advanced estimate of 95.76 million tonnes, production would be around 90-91 million tonnes.