Punjab tops wheat procurement chart, but Madhya Pradesh closes in

Punjab continues to lead the country in wheat procurement. In a recently released data, Department of Food & Public Distribution says Punjab procured over 98.66 lakh tonnes of wheat in this Rabi season, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 72.61 lakh tonnes.

Haryana follows in third place with 67.55 lakh tonnes.

What would be of concern to Punjab is that procurement from the state is down by 15.5 per cent. At the same time, procurement from its competitors Haryana and Madhya Pradesh increased significantly by 5-15 per cent.

There were complaints from traders in Punjab that officials from Central agencies are not keen to procure wheat from the state. However, the state government maintained that it is ensuring every stock that comes to the marketplace or mandi should be procured. The state government had made provisions to procure 125 lakh tones of wheat this year. The Reserve Bank of India on April 1 had sanctioned a cash credit limit of Rs 14,640 crore for wheat procurement in Punjab.

Despite the NDA being in power both at the Centre and in the state (where Shiromani Akali Dal is the bigger partner), things were not smooth. There were reports that the Union government suspects that the Punjab government diverted the money meant for wheat procurement to fund its own food security scheme. Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal was said to be unhappy because of this.

The data released on Thursday by the department shows that wheat procurement across the country crossed last year's mark by 5 lakh tonnes. Last year in the Rabi marketing season, the procurement was 262.86 lakh tonnes of wheat. This year, procurement has already crossed 267.06 lakh tonnes.

This year the procurement cycle started 15 days late because of the unseasonal rains, hailstorm and logging. As a result, much of the grain procured is of low quality and may not be fit for human consumption, can't be stored for a long time and is unlikely to pass export norms.

However, the Union government has relaxed the norms for procuring wheat affected with unseasonal rains and hailstorms. The government had relaxed quality norms  for wheat procurement and also decided to bear value cut, if any imposed, for shrivelled and broken grains, and for grains with lost lustre, so that farmers get minimum support price (MSP) for their produce.

State wise wheat procurement as on May 27, 2015: