Officials from State and Central governments and their agencies are allegedly making 5-6 rounds of premises/factories of traders/millers after the imposition of stock holding limit, even without any reason, which some of the affected stakeholders are believed to have brought it to the notice of the concerned authorities.

Armed with the power to inspect any time, the visit of multiple officials and multiple times have become irritants for the flour millers who want the government to first gather inputs and then send officials for the inspection. Recently, the government has tightened the stocking norms for retailers, wholesalers and processors which led to speculation of further reduction in norms as supplies reduce in the market with the progress towards a new season from April.

However, the government is likely to ease the stocking norms for the processors by February so that they are able to procure when the new crop starts arriving in the market from mid-February.

The Centre on December 8 announced revised wheat stock limit, reducing the maximum quantity processors, retailers, wholesalers can keep at any point of time.

Revised limit

According to the revised notification, 5 tonnes of wheat limit has been fixed for any retail outlet including big chains at retail outlet level, against 10 tonnes earlier. For traders and wholesalers as well as big chain retailers at depot level it has been cut to 1,000 tonnes from 2,000 tonnes. For processors of atta and other flour products like sooji and maida, the maximum capacity will be 70 per cent of monthly installed capacity of the mills multiplied by four, which is the remaining months of 2023-24.

This effectively has asked processors to clear entire stock by March 31, 2024, whereas buying selling is a continuous process and account books are maintained accordingly, industry sources said.

The Food Ministry has asked the stakeholders to conform to the revised prescribed stock limits by January 6 in case the stocks held by any of these entities are higher than the limit. All wheat stocking entities are required to register on the wheat stock limit portal and update the stock position on every Friday.

No stern message

Unlike for the rice industry, the Government is not going to issue any stern message to the wheat flour millers as it has conveyed that the offerings under open market sales scheme may be raised if there is any increase in wheat prices. The Food Secretary on December 18 warned rice industry people against unreasonable profiteering and asked them to lower prices of common varieties of rice.

But, the Food Ministry has been convinced that increased availability from the official reserves in the open market has been helping it to contain wheat prices effectively. The Government is even ready to release 20-25 lakh tonnes (lt) from the buffer stock, if there is a need, sources said.

Besides, there is no plan to allow import at reduced duty, for now and the government will keep a watch on the crop till arrivals pick up by mid-March, sources said.

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