The Centre will allocate additional quantities of wheat and rice for ration card holders at rates lower than the minimum support price (MSP), but higher that the issue price, under the public distribution system. The allocations would be made from June. At the same time, the government on Wednesday allowed export of wheat products like rava, sooji and maida, much in demand by expatriate Indians, for a year till March 31,...

wheat prices started showing a downward movement today after an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by FM Pranab Mukherjee okayed the release of an additional 30 lakh tonnes of wheat and rice for the poor, over and above the current PDS allocation, for the next six months. The most-active wheat contract was reportedly trading around 0.60% lower at Rs 1,158.40/qtl on the back of fresh selling in anticipation of...

An empowered group of ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee decided to release an additional 500,000 tonnes of wheat and rice every month for sale to ration card holders for the next six months, according to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. The move is aimed at reining in prices and curbing inflation and will cost the government an estimated Rs2,000 crore. The group met on Wednesday to discuss foodgrain availability...

State Government reduces wheat quota to 25 kg from 35 kg Human rights groups have challenged the Rajasthan Government's latest initiative to provide wheat at the rate of Rs.2 per kg to the 27 lakh-strong BPL families in the State pointing out that there is a catch in the move—that instead of the entitlement of 35 kg of wheat per BPL family every month, the quota has been brought down to...

The empowered Group of Ministers on food security, scheduled to meet tomorrow, will have to walk a tightrope in trying to fulfill the ‘food for all’ promise made by the Congress party in its election manifesto. Not only is the government hamstrung by its inability to sustain procurement levels of of 50 million tonnes of foodgrains every year required to feed all poor — below poverty line (BPL) and above...