The latest round of weekly e-auction on Wednesday under the Centre’s Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) surprised the trade and industry as there was a big fall in wheat prices, which is attributed to the Centre’s announcement of releasing 50 lakh tonnes additional wheat in market as well as offering higher quantity. The average price in current round of auction was ₹2,155.96/quintal — down from ₹2,254.71 last week.

As much as 1.52 lakh tonnes (lt) of wheat were sold out of 2.06 lt offered, which is 74 per cent, official sources said. The lifting of wheat in current round is the second highest so far from the current year’s auction that began from June 28, an official source said. The previous high was 1.77 lt on July 12 when the offered quantity was 4.18 lt and traders were also allowed.

The highest bid price, which was ₹2,600 in West Bengal last week, fell to ₹ 2,405, which shows the big reduction and the trend is almost same in all the States, the source said. The biggest fall ₹340/quintal was recorded in Delhi — from the highest bid price of ₹2,485 last week to ₹2,145 now.

The highest quoted wheat price has come down from ₹2,685 to ₹2,450 in Maharashtra, ₹2,575 to ₹2,345 in Assam, from ₹2,430 to ₹2,260 in Madhya Pradesh, from ₹2,420 to ₹2,315 in Jharkhand, from ₹2,415 to ₹2,225 in Rajasthan, from ₹2,380 to ₹2,155 in Uttarakhand, trade sources said. It has gone up only in Odisha from ₹2,400 to ₹2,420, the source said.

Quantity up

businessline last week reported that the prices might come down if the government raised the offered quantity to prevent the participants from unnecessarily bidding higher rates. The FCI, in fact, had almost doubled the offered quantity to 2.06 lt in current round from 1.09 lt last round.

For Rajasthan, the offered quantity was increased to 15,000 tonnes this week from 6,000 tonnes last week and despite 120 successful bidders against 74 last week, weighted average prices got reduced, the source said. In Delhi, too, the offered quantity was increased to 5,000 tonnes from 3,000 tonnes.

The sold out quantity of rice further increased in the current auction to 8,300 tonnes from 1,500 tonnes in the previous round, the government recently decided to cut the reserve price by ₹200 per quintal to ₹2,900. It also announced to offer 25 lt of rice from the buffer stock for the OMSS sales.

The weighted average selling price of rice in current round was ₹2,979.13 per quintal, almost at par with its reserve price of ₹2,970 per quintal for fortified rice.

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