The Hindu : National : Centre anxious about wheat procurement

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 08, 2006

National

National

Centre anxious about wheat procurement

Gargi Parsai

Pawar reviews situation; Punjab, Haryana revise targets

NEW DELHI: Major wheat-growing States of Punjab and Haryana have revised downwards their procurement targets for this rabi in view of the threat to the standing crop from rise in temperature last month. At the same time, Uttar Pradesh is being persuaded to procure 25 lakh tonnes of wheat against 5.6 lakh tonnes it returned for the central pool last year. The overall wheat procurement target of 162 lakh tonnes includes procurement of 25 lakh tonnes from Uttar Pradesh.

This emerged at a meeting convened here on Monday by Union Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar of State Food Secretaries and Agriculture Produce Commissioners from wheat-growing States to review procurement targets and preparedness. This is the second such meeting within a month.

Anxious to reach procurement targets against reduced wheat stocks and import of five lakh tonnes of wheat, Mr Pawar personally went over the procurement preparedness of each State. He commented on the performance of Uttar Pradesh last season and told the State representative that he would write to Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav to take steps to procure 25 lakh tonnes in the current rabi season, sources said. Against an earlier target of 90.1 lakh tonnes, Punjab today said that it would procure 85 lakh tonnes of wheat this season. Last year the State had returned 90 lakh tonnes for the central pool. Haryana also downscaled its earlier target of 45.3 lakh tonnes to 42 lakh tonnes in today's meeting, sources said.

According to the sources, the State Agriculture Commissioners indicated to the Minister that with the drop in temperatures last week, the production target of 73.06 million tonnes was likely to be met. Wheat output last season was about 72 million tonnes.Wheat procurement will begin for the early sown varieties in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan from March 20. In Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttranchal and Bihar procurement would commence from April 1. In today's meeting, the Food Corporation of India was urged to enhance procurement from Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

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