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Centre calls meeting with States on Aug 30 to draw rice procurement plan.
Aug 25, 2022

The Food Ministry is taking all precautions for the ensuing kharif marketing season to procure rice for the Central Pool after having been unable to procure even 50 per cent of wheat in the rabi marketing season this year. It is expecting the States to convey how much of rice it could procure during a meeting on August 30.

The meeting for this year’s rice procurement plan assumes significance amid an 8 per cent drop in acreage under paddy from a year ago and also the crop getting damaged due to floods in several parts of the country.

States’ food secretaries have been urged to come up with a realistic assessment as the Centre cannot afford to repeat what happened in the case of wheat due to stocks dropping in the Central Pool, an official source said. However, officials in some States said a lot depends on market price of paddy as farmers would prefer to sell in mandis if they get higher rates.

The minimum support price of paddy has been fixed at Rs.2,040/quintal for the 2022-23 crop year (July-June), up 5.15 per cent from last year’s Rs.1,940. The current all-India average mandi price is Rs.1,775(August 1-24), down from Rs.1,832/quintal in July, according to Agmarknet portal. On the other hand, rice prices (monthly average) have been stable in different regions between Rs.32 and Rs.47/kg in July and August, according to Consumer Affairs Ministry data.

Stocks with FCI

Rice stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) have declined to 27.95 million tonnes (mt) as of August 1 from 29.1 mt a year ago. The stocks were 31.7 mt as of July 1. Unmilled paddy stocks have declined to 19.46 mt as of August 1 from 22.91 mt a year ago.

Stressing that there will be no problem in Punjab in rice procurement, a State government official said it is confident of achieving the target, which will be finalised soon. It will likely be almost at par with the previous year. Punjab contributed 12.55 mt (the same quantity as its target) of rice to the Central Pool in 2021-22 (October-September season), which is 21 per cent of total procurement of 59.13 mt, so far.

The official said when all other States had failed, it was Punjab which contributed 51 per cent of nearly 19 mt of wheat procured from across the country this year whereas the target was for 44.4 mt. The wheat procurement in Punjab was 9.65 mt against a target of 13.2 mt, whereas the purchase in Madhya Pradesh was 4.6 mt against 12.9 mt target.

Paddy sowing in the past week has improved with the addition of about 34 lh narrowing the deficit in its acreage. Overall, the acreage of paddy is down by 8 per cent at 343.70 lh as of August 18 from 374.63 lh a year ago whereas the sowing area was 12 per cent lower at 309.79 lh until August 12, data released by the Agriculture Ministry show. Earlier, the government had set this season’s target for paddy area at 413.13 lh, which is likely to be missed with all major producers reporting lower acreage.

thehindubusinessline.com

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