Centre may relax quality norms for wheat procurement in Punjab, Haryana

The Centre has sent a team to Punjab and Haryana to inspect the quality of wheat arriving at to terminal markets (mandis) and procurement centres and will likely relax the norms for procuring the cereal in the two States for the Central pool stocks.

After receiving the report, a decision is likely to be taken for relaxing procurement norms before Monday (April 10). Also, the crop damage due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms is unlikely to impact the Centre’s procurement target of 34.15 million tonnes (mt).

Last month, Madhya Pradesh was allowed to procure wheat at relaxed norm with a rider that payment should be about ₹5.31/quintal lower than minimum support price of ₹2,125/quintal if the lustre loss in the grain is more than 10 per cent.

Trying to assess loss

Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala has urged the Centre to relax the quality norms of wheat being purchased during current 2023-24 season after official purchases began from April 1. He said the State government has been in the process of collecting field reports from major procuring districts such as Kaithal, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Fatehabad, Sirsa, Jind and Yamunanagar on lustre-loss in the wheat crop. Of the nearly 27,000 tonnes that have arrived in Haryana, only 28 tonnes have been procured so far.

Speaking to media on Thursday, Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said there is some impact on quality due to unseasonal rains. “We have already allowed MP relaxation in terms of lustre loss. We have received similar request from Haryana and Punjab. As we speak, our staff are already in the field collecting samples and trying to assess what has been the reduction against the fair average quality (FAQ) standards.

“We are confident that we should be able to meet the target (34.15 mt) for procurement of wheat this year,” Chopra said. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has procured 0.63 mt of wheat — over 99 per cent of it only in Madhya Pradesh — in the current season so far against 0.11 mt a year ago despite lower arrival of the crop. So far, arrivals are 1.64 mt against 1.98 mt a year ago.

The Food Secretary said the government is hopeful of a record wheat production of 112.18 mt in 2022-23 crop year (July-June) despite inclement weather conditions in some parts of the country affecting the grains quality. “Because of the inclement weather in the last few weeks, there has been some damage to the wheat crop. But the production loss will be minimal. We are hopeful of achieving the overall production estimate,” Chopra said.

Officials said due to high moisture content in the wheat, farmers have been advised not to harvest now and allow the crop to get dried on the field itself as they would not get reasonable price. The mandi prices of FAQ wheat are in the range of ₹1,900-2,350/quintal in Madhya Pradesh and ₹2,125-2,480 in Uttar Pradesh, data show.