Good news on price-front

CHANDIGARH: Wheat prices are unlikely to shoot up with Food Corporation of India (FCI) appearing to head towards procuring more grain than expected from the wheat bowl of the country - Punjab and Haryana.
According to indications, this year other states too would contribute more than the target to the central pool. Also, as per information, the private traders have not bought much wheat, such that they could hoard it later.
FCI has already achieved its procurement target of 150 lakh metric tonnes (MTs) this year till Thursday. With active procurement season still on, the FCI is expected to gather at least 25 to 30 lakh MTs, given the wheat ���mandi��� arrival trends.
The procurement was just 82.4 lakh MTs till May 1 last year, which was just around 53.5% of this year���s procurement. With the prospects of the wheat procurement touching 180 lakh metric tonnes- highest in the last five years, food security is ensured, albeit for this election year. Already, the Centre has announced that foodgrain situation would be comfortable and there won���t be any need to import wheat this year to meet the PDS and food-related welfare schemes requirements.
During his visit to oversee the procurement arrangements last month, union agriculture and food minister Sharad Pawar had set a target of 80 lakh MTs for Punjab and 40 for Haryana. Both the states too have already crossed their targets with Punjab collecting 62.9 lakh MTs and Haryana 46.5 lakh MTs till date. And both the states have together contributed in the vicinity of 84% of the total wheat to central pool. In fact, he could not have expected more from these two neighbouring states, which have been described as food basket of India.
Fortunately for the FCI, the traders were shy of lifting wheat in both these states. While their share in Punjab was 2.5% (2.12 lakh MTs), the traders' share was just around 1%. BKU president BS Mann said the big players had been banned to enter Punjab and Haryana markets to leave the field wide open for the FCI. However, the traders say they were reluctant to lift wheat, apprehending that the government would resort to strong-arm tactics like fixing limits on stocks, said RS Cheema of arthiya association.
However, traders confide that since there was little scope for speculation in view of last years' experience and also the government indication of effective intervention even it it involved huge imports at prohibitive cost during the election year had dissuaded them not to go for big purchase of wheat. Perhaps, they sensed that the production was very high and realised the futility of buying for speculation.
Interestingly, other states too have contributed substantially to the central pool compared to last two years.