Private wheat procurement declines

"Private procurement has reached 11.7 lakh tonnes till June as per the declarations filed by the private trade," an industry source said. Last year, private sector had purchased over 20 lakh tonnes of wheat.     

ITC has mopped up 5.4 lakh tonnes till June compared to 8.2 lakh tonnes last year while Cargill has purchased 1.2 lakh tonnes against 3.8 lakh tonnes, he said, adding other players have purchased less than one lakh tonne.     

 

ITC is selling wheat flour (atta) under 'Aashirwad' brand while Cargill sell under 'Nature Fresh' brand. Both the players have considerable market share in the branded flour segment at national level.     

To keep a track on private procurement, the Centre has made it mandatory for the private trade to file declaration if they purchase more than 10,000 tonnes of wheat from the market.     

The provision of mandatory declaration was introduced last year when the government failed to meet its procurement target of 150 lakh tonnes wheat in 2006.     

The government was able to procure only 92 and 111 lakh tonnes of wheat in 2006 and 2007 respectively because of aggressive buying by the corporates and private traders.     

However, this year the Centre has been able to achieve a record procurement of 225 lakh tons on the back of higher minimum support price of Rs 1,000 per quintal and record wheat production of 78.4 million tonnes.     

Wheat prices are generally stable throughout the country barring few places where government is planning to release stocks in the open market.