FCI starts selling wheat in open market through NSPOT
28 Jan 2014
The Food Corporation of India has started selling wheat in the open market using the electronic spot trading platform of commodity bourse NCDEX.
State-run FCI and privately-run NCDEX Spot Exchange (NSPOT) have recently entered into an agreement to sell wheat under the Open Market Sales Scheme (OMSS) using the latter's e-auction trading platform.
''The first of the e-auction of wheat was successfully carried out on 25 January 2014 in Delhi and Hyderabad,'' NSPOT said in a statement.
This would gradually expand to include other commodities pan-India, it added.
Under the agreement, NSPOT said all regional centres of FCI would use e-auction trading platform and cease to float paper/ physical tender as was done earlier.
The agreement would benefit for both entities as FCI would benefit from the use of the new age trading platform leading to real time competition and transparency while NSPOT will be able to expand its reach to more than 5,000 millers who can now participate in the e-auction for sale of more than 3 million tonnes of FCI wheat.
At the same time, the e-auction will help in reducing the cost associated with physical tendering system as well as doing away with the hassles of paperwork.
"This is a part of the efforts by NSPOT to provide end-to-end solutions to the entire agri-commodity value chain. We are delighted to partner with FCI and facilitate simple, safe, transparent real time procurement operations and it is indeed an hour to actively contribute to India's food program," NSPOT head and executive vice president Rajesh Sinha said.
NSPOT had emerged as the lowest bidder in the tender floated by FCI for the purpose. NSPOT has set up a unique private marketplace for FCI as per their model tender form adapting its dynamic e-auction market platform.
