India FCI to sell 3 mt of foodgrain at discount

Following a government order, the Food Corp of India (FCI) will sell three million tonnes of food grains at discounted rates during the Jun-Nov period, an FCI official today said. According to the current order, wheat rates have been fixed at Rs 845 per 100 kg as against Rs 1,080 earlier, and rice at Rs 1,185 per 100 kg from its previous minimum support price of Rs 1,455. Last month, a ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had declared an ad-hoc allocation of three million tonnes of food grains for sale to ration card holders from June onwards. Accordingly, the government has earmarked 1.69 million tonnes of wheat and 1.38 million tonnes of rice to be sold through the targeted public distribution system during May 31-Nov 30, the official said. Earlier, in January-February, the government had made an allocation of 2.55 million tonnes of wheat and one million tonnes of rice, but states had lifted just 4,20,000 tonnes of wheat and 5,02,000 tonnes of rice from this allocation till May 28. “The earlier scheme was valid till June 1, but in the latest order it has been discontinued and replaced with the new scheme. The sale price has also been reduced and we are expecting better response to the current scheme,” he said. As on May 1, FCI’s foodgrain stocks stood at around 60 million tonnes—33.7 million tonnes of wheat and 26.2 million tonnes of rice, way above the buffer norm requirement.