The government’s wheat auction on Thursday will be closely watched by stakeholders and officials after the offered quantity raised to 5 lakh tonnes (lt) from previous 4 lt due to a sudden escalation of prices.
Of the 1 lt raised quantity, 63 per cent has been offered to five key producing States of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
The top 10 States, including Bihar, Assam, Karnataka, Delhi and Maharashtra, accounted for 80.6 per cent of the total quantity raised last Friday, according to an official source.
“With the new crop already arriving in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and set to reach other States in 30 days, millers wouldn’t have paid over ₹3,000/quintal if there were ample supplies, especially when the government will procure the next crop at an MSP of ₹2,425,” said an industry official.
The government needs to do production estimate seriously or has to re-assess the domestic consumption estimate as both record production and 11-12 million tonnes (mt) surplus cannot be correct, said a former head of the Food Corporation of India. He was referring to the Agriculture Ministry’s production estimate of 113.29 mt and domestic consumption of about 101-102 mt.
During last week’s e-auction, the highest bid price in Uttar Pradesh was ₹3,159/quintal and the lowest was ₹2,958. As many as 168 buyers had bid above ₹3,000 per quintal, while only 30 processors had bid below ₹3,000/quintal. In comparison, the highest bid price in the State was ₹3,010 and the lowest was ₹2,520 on February 12 auction, when only one buyer out of 332 successful bidders had paid above ₹3,000 to buy 25 tonnes.
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Last week, the highest bid price in Karnataka was ₹3,424, in Haryana and Maharashtra it was ₹3,200l, in Delhi ₹3,131, in Madhya Pradesh ₹3,120/quintal, in Gujarat ₹3,087, in Rajasthan ₹3,098, in West Bengal ₹3,091, in Bihar ₹3,104, and in Punjab ₹3,100.
On February 12 e-auction, the highest bid prices were ₹3,335 per quintal in Haryana, ₹2,954 in Maharashtra, ₹2,900 in Madhya Pradesh, ₹2,650 in Gujarat, ₹3,029 in Rajasthan, ₹3,019 in Karnataka, ₹2,871 in Delhi, ₹2,835 in West Bengal, ₹2,803 in Bihar and in Punjab ₹2,610 per quintal.
“Already speculation has started in the market about the next wheat crop due to rising temperature in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere. As the wheat crop has been getting affected continuously for last three years, even if the scale of yield loss is debatable, coordinated efforts by Agriculture and Food Ministries with ICAR and private sector may be able to find a long-term solution,” said the industry official.
In Madhya Pradesh, out of over 94,000 tonnes of wheat arrived in mandis in past week, maximum nearly 12,000 tonnes were received in Khandwa district, whereas Ujjain, Sehore, Ratlam, Dhar and Dewas are the other districts where arrivals were 6,000 tonnes or more. Mandi prices were in the range of ₹2,800-3,050/quintal, on an average.
