Chandigarh, March 11
Agri-corporates have been told not to procure wheat from Punjab and Haryana. These directions have been issued to procure maximum foodgrains for buffer stocks, public distribution system (PDS) and to control foodgrain prices in the election year.
Though farmers in the food bowl of India here will suffer loss as they will not get a price beyond the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,000 per quintal, these directions have been issued by the Ministry of Food primarily to check wheat price fast snowballing into a major election issue. Sources said a meeting of various agri-corporates was called last week, where top officials of the ministry told them to operate in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and leave Punjab and Haryana for government procurement agencies.
Punjab and Haryana together account for 90 per cent of wheat production in the country. In three years, prices of wheat and wheat flour have been on an upswing in the domestic as well as international market. The wholesale price of wheat as on date is between Rs 1,100 and Rs 1,145 per quintal in the domestic market, while the price is as high as Rs 1,600 ($ 400) per quintal in the international market. If the agri-corporates were allowed to operate in Punjab and Haryana, farmers here would have got at least Rs 200 to Rs 300 per quintal more than the MSP.
Sources say the government already has buffer stock of 53 lakh metric tonnes, which is mainly built on the 50 lakh metric tonnes of wheat imported by the
government over two years. Each year, the government requires about 144 lakh metric tonnes for PDS and other schemes like food for work, mid-day meals scheme etc. The Ministry of Food is expecting to procure at least 85 lakh metric tonnes of wheat from Punjab and 40 lakh metric tonnes from Haryana, besides 10 lakh metric tonnes from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. “This can be done only if the agri corporates are not allowed to operate in Punjab.
The farmer obviously will like to sell to the private companies, which offer higher price than the MSP. So, the only alternative left with the government was to ask these corporates to stay out of Punjab and Haryana,” said a top official.
