Government may end up buying less than 30 million tonnes of wheat -Sanjeeb Mukherjee

Till date, government has procured over 27 million tonnes of wheat

By all estimates, wheat procurement is expected to be around 30 million tonnes in 2017-18, short of the initial target of 33 million tonnes.
 
Food Minister Ramvilas Paswan in an interview to Business Standard did estimate that final procurement figures could be around 30 million tonnes, but said that it won’t have any impact on stocks as the purchases were more than last year and government has enough stock in hand.
 
Till date, government has procured over 27 million tonnes of wheat — 23 million tonnes more than last year.
 
If the final procurement falls short of 33 million tonnes, it will be the second successive year of the government falling short of its target.
 
However, unlike last year, the culprit this year seems to be the increased buying by private traders and not a overestimation of production, which most traders and industry analysts believe is expected to be significantly more than 90 million tonnes. Though, it might not be near government’s estimate of 97.44 million tonnes.
 
If government officials and traders are to be believed, it’s the high price offered by private traders in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh which has lured them away from government purchasing centres.
 
So far, government has purchased 5.9 million tonnes of wheat from farmers as against the target of 8.5 million tonnes. In Uttar Pradesh, it has purchases 1.59 million tonnes against a target of 3 million tonnes.
 
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