Massive grain procurement to meet the requirements under the proposed national food security law could drive out the private sector and have larger implications on the state of the domestic procurement market, a study on food and nutritional security has warned. Apart from impacting exports and cereal price in the open market, rising public procurement will only make it costly to buy, store, transport and distribute grain, the study said, adding...

The arrival of large quantities of wheat in the grain markets of the Punjab-Haryana region is a heart-warming sight, while poor storage is a matter of national shame. It was in April-May 1968, that the country witnessed the wonderful spectacle of large arrivals of wheat grain in the mandis of Punjab like Moga and Khanna. Wheat production in the country rose to nearly 17 million tonnes that year, from the previous...

50 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat for all States/Union Territories at BPL prices Need to strike a balance between excess procurement and storage: Justice Bhandari ‘Whatever you procure, store it properly. The rest you can distribute to starving people' Responding to the concern expressed by the Supreme Court over malnutrition and starvation deaths, the Centre on Tuesday informed it of the decision to make an additional allocation of 50 lakh tonnes of...

Even as the highest ever harvest of wheat and rice is expected this year, callous administration is leading to rice literally going up in smoke in the Punjab. Tens of thousands of tons of rice stocked for the last five years in the open have now caught fire at a Punjab Agro storage area in Khamano, a large procurement market.   An incensed Supreme Court had in 2010 said if the government...

Procurement of wheat for the public distribution system on Friday crossed the last year's level although it remained lower in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, compared to the corresponding period last year, due to late arrival or delayed reporting. As per the latest data released by the Centre, the Food Corporation of India and State agencies had procured 20.92 million tonnes of wheat compared to 20.61 million tonnes procured last year in...