Season set to end, Centre’s wheat intake still off target

BY Neel Kamal

Even as India’s wheat production is pegged close to its target of 112 million tonnes (1,120 lakh MT), the central govt’s procurement in rabi marketing season 2024-25 is much lower than its target.

As the wheat procurement season is about to end, there is a shortfall of over 107 lakh metric tonnes as per the estimates (target) of the central govt. Till June 13, 265.33 LMT of wheat has been procured in the central pool even as the procurement target was 372.90 LMT.

In big wheat producing states, procurement for the national pool ended a long ago. However, the procurement season will continue in Uttar Pradesh till June 15 and in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan till June 30 even as wheat arrival in mandis of these states is very low.

However, wheat procurement till now is over 4.5 LMT more than the previous year as 260.71 LMT of wheat was procured for national pool in RMS 2023-24. Going by the big shortfall in govt procurement, there has been an indication of the Centre allowing import of three-five million tonnes of wheat after 7 years.

Of the total 265.33 LMT of wheat procured till now, Punjab’s contribution of 124.52 LMT (46.94%) is the highest but falls short of the estimate (target) of 130 LMT. Haryana has contributed 71.15 LMT (26.82%) against the target of 80 LMT. Together, both the states have contributed 195.67 LMT (73.76%) of the national pool procurement.

Apart from these two, MP has contributed 48.36 LMT against a target of 80 LMT. UP has contributed 9.27 LMT against the target of 60 LMT, Rajasthan has contributed 11.86 LMT against a target of 20 LMT, Bihar has contributed 10,065 MT against a target of 2 LMT, and HP has contributed 2,841 MT against a target of 10k MT. Uttarakhand has contributed 1,273 MT against a target of 50k MT while J&K and Gujarat have contributed nil against a target of 20k and 10k MT, respectively.

Farmers’ Forum Bharat Krishak Samaj chairman Ajay Vir Jakhar said whatever be the wheat production estimates, “there is shortfall in procurement target.” The shortfall is due to private traders procuring wheat stock in large quantities. There is nothing wrong in it as the market should be encouraged to deliver better prices to farmers, he added.

MS Sidhu, former senior economist at PAU, Ludhiana says private traders anticipating spurt in prices purchased large quantities of wheat above the MSP in MP, UP, and Rajasthan.

This article has been republished from The Times of India.