India: Wheat stocks seen at 159 lakh tonnes on Jan 1, 2023 as against buffer norm of 138 lakh tonnes: Govt

The government on Thursday said wheat stocks in the central pool will be about 159 lakh tonnes on January 1, 2023 as against the buffer norm of 138 lakh tonnes.

“Government of India has sufficient food grain stocks under central pool to meet the requirement of NFSA (National Food Security Act) and its other welfare schemes as well as for additional allocation of PMGKAY (Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana),” an official statement said.

About 159 lakh tonnes of wheat will be available as on January 1, 2023, which is well above the buffer norm requirement of 138 lakh tonnes. As on December 12, around 182 lakh tonnes of wheat is available in the central pool.

“Government of India is well aware of the price scenario of wheat and is constantly monitoring it regularly on weekly basis along with other commodities and taking corrective measures, as and when required,” it said.

The Centre has taken proactive steps to ward off any further price rise and export regulations were imposed with effect from May 13, 2022.

Further, the allocations under the NFSA as well as PMGKAY have also been revised in favour of rice for having sufficient wheat stock in the central pool to cater to the requirements of welfare schemes, the statement said.

The Centre has enhanced the MSP (minimum support price) of wheat crop this year to Rs 2,125 per quintal against the last year’s MSP of Rs 2,015 per quintal for RMS (rabi marketing season) 2022-23.

Thus, an increase in MSP of Rs 110 per quintal coupled with fairly good climatic conditions, it is expected that the production and procurement of wheat during the next season will remain normal.

“Procurement of Wheat next season would commence from April 2023 and as per initial assessment, there has been a fair increase in the sowing of wheat crop as compared to last year,” the statement said.

The government said it has ensured that sufficient stock of food grains are available in the Central Pool to meet the requirement of all the welfare schemes and prices remain under control.

“Though procurement of wheat during last season was on lower side due to lesser production coupled with selling by farmers at prices higher than MSP in the open market consequent to geo-political situation, yet enough stock of Wheat will still be available in central pool to cater to the needs of the country till the time next Wheat crop arrives,” it added.

Wheat procurement in rabi marketing season (April-June) of 2022-23 fell to 187.92 lakh tonnes as against 433.44 lakh tonnes in 2021-22 as market price of wheat was higher than the ruling MSP.

India’s wheat production declined to 106.84 million tonnes in the 2021-22 crop year (July-June) from 109.6 million tonnes in the previous year due to heat waves in certain states like Punjab and Haryana.

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