Open market sales of wheat cross 5 MT
By Sandip Das
The open market sale of wheat by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) on Wednesday crossed 5 million tonne (MT) in this fiscal after it sold 0.34 MT of wheat in the weekly e-auction launched since June.
More than 25,00 processors purchased wheat at Rs 2,178/quintal against a reserve price set of Rs 2,128/quintal. The corporation received bids with a high of Rs 2,310 for the week ended October 26.
Since June, FCI so far has sold 5.15 MT of wheat from its stock through weekly e-auctions. At present, wheat stock with FCI is 18.82 MT, lowest since 2016 against the buffer of 13.8 MT for January 1.
Meanwhile sources told FE that after getting lukewarm response for the weekly e-auction of rice from its surplus grian stock, the corporation sold 13,000 tonne of rice to bulk buyers which is highest this fiscal. Since July, the corporation has sold 0.13 MT of rice through a weekly e-auctions this fiscal.
The FCI has been selling rice under OMSS at Rs 2900/quintal, below the economic cost of grain for 2022-23 at Rs 3,537/quintal.
To enhance the availability of wheat in the open market, the food ministry last week had decided to offer 0.4 MT grain weekly from the FCI stock instead of current practice of 0.3 MT to the bulk buyers.
Around 6 MT of the grain is required for supplies under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana till end of the current fiscal.
The government is aiming to sell another 5.6 MT of wheat this fiscal which may lead to the grain stock held with the corporation precariously close to the buffer, an official said.
The government recently announced an additional allocation of 2.5 MT to be sold under the OMSS to bulk buyers through weekly e-auction during January-March, 2024 besides 10.15 MT already approved for the current fiscal.
In addition, 94,516 tonne of wheat has been lifted by Kendriya Bhandar, farmers’ cooperatives Nafed and National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) so far from FCI at MSP rate for converting into ‘Bharat Atta’ which is being sold to consumers at Rs 27.5/Kg.
The corporation has allocated 0.4 MT of grain to these agencies till January 2024.
Inflation in wheat declined further to 6.36% last month from 7.61% in September on year because of improvement in supplies due to open market sale by the government.
However, retail rice prices rose by 11.81% in November, marginally higher from the previous month.
This article has been republished from The Financial Express.