Govt gears up to meet PDS wheat shortfall
The Centre has estimated the procurement of rice during kharif marketing season ’06-07 at 250-270 lakh tonnes. The preliminary estimate emerged at a meeting of state food secretaries held under the chairmanship of food and PDS secretary T Nand Kum...
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: The Centre has estimated the procurement of rice during kharif marketing season ’06-07 at 250-270 lakh tonnes. The preliminary estimate emerged at a meeting of state food secretaries held under the chairmanship of food and PDS secretary T Nand Kumar recently.
The assessment is crucial against a background of significant shortfall in PDS wheat, necessitating massive imports since February this year.
The government has plans to push more rice and coarse grains on the PDS of states in order to make up for the shortfall, based on the annual off take over the last three years. Record rice production was estimated for the year, but the wheat shortfall made a big dent in the overall food grain production, for both welfare programmes and for the private sector.
The actual procurement of rice during kharif marketing season ’05-06 was 276.8 lakh tonnes against an initial estimate of 230.1 lakh tonnes. The procurement of rice in AP, Chhattisgarh and Orissa is expected to cross the previous year’s level though the production in Punjab and Haryana might marginally fall due to shortage of rainfall, an official release said.
The meeting was convened to take stock of arrangements and the preparedness of state governments for procurement operations of paddy and coarse grains under the MSP scheme during the ensuring marketing season ’06-07. The meeting also reviewed the storage as well as warehousing facilities in states besides availability of packing material.
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The meeting welcomed the announcement of a bonus of Rs 40 per quintal in addition to the MSP of Rs 580 and Rs 610 per quintal for common and grade A varieties of paddy respectively. It is felt that this would lead to more procurement during the ensuing marketing season. It also welcomed the decision of the food ministry to restore powers under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 for undertaking de-hoarding operations.
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