India raises 2018 local wheat purchase price by 6.8 percent

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will raise the price at which the government will buy new-season wheat from local farmers in 2018 by 110 rupees ($1.69), or 6.8 percent, the minister of agriculture said on Tuesday, to boost local wheat output.

The revised purchase price of 1,735 rupees ($26.66) per 100 kg compares with 1,625 rupees a year ago, Radha Mohan Singh said in a tweet.

India, the world's second-biggest rice and wheat producer, buys the grain from local farmers at state-set prices to build stocks to run a major food welfare programme which covers about 75 percent of its 1.3 billion people.

 

($1 = 65.0800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Aditi Shah. Editing by Jane Merriman)