FCI to sell wheat at Rs1,484 per quintal to exporters

Food Corporation of India (FCI) has invited financial bids for sale of wheat of crop year 2011-12 from its Punjab and Haryana godowns. FCI has fixed the base price of wheat to be exported under open general licence (OGL) at Rs1,484 per quintal.

FCI will sell a total of 5,40,000 tonnes of wheat from its various godowns in the Punjab and Haryana regions, the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution said in a release today.

Minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution KV Thomas, meanwhile, told the Rajya Sabha that the total foodgrain stock with the central pool stood at over 59.6 million tonnes as of 1 April 2013.

He said the government has made allocation of 62.77 million tonnes of foodgrains under targeted public distribution system (TPDS), other welfare schemes (OWS) and for festival, calamity relief etc during the year 2012-13.

During the current year 2013-14, the government of so far allocated a quantity of 46.40 million tonnes under TPDS and OWS. Further, he said, the government has proposed additional allocations of approximately 6.1 million tonnes of foodgrains to above poverty line (APL) families and 5.0 million tonnes of additional allocation to below poverty line (BPL) families in different states/ union territories.

Apart from the above, a proposal to increase the allocation from 10kg-35kg per APL family per month to 20kg-35kg per APL family per month is also under consideration, he said.

The minister said the implementation of the Food Security Bill would take the estimated annual requirement of foodgrains for public distribution (at 2011 population) to 60.74 million tonnes.