6.6 mn tonnes of wheat at risk during monsoon: Govt

As monsoon steadily progresses across the country,the government said that about 6.6 million tonnes of freshly procured wheat

As monsoon steadily progresses across the country,the government on Thursday said that about 6.6 million tonnes of freshly procured wheat worth about Rs 12,000 crore spread across Punjab,Haryana,Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan was at the risk of damage for want of sufficient scientific storage facilities before the onset of monsoon.

We are concerned about 6.6 million tonnes of wheat kept open in unscientific way mainly in Punjab,Haryana,Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. We will give utmost priority to move this wheat to safe place in monsoon, Food Minister KV Thomas admitted while addressing a press conference here.

This 6.6 million tonnes of unscientifically stored wheat was in addition to about 20.8 million tonnes of wheat stored scientifically under tarpaulin sheets in open.

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The Food Ministry explained that three million tonnes of the 6.6 million tonnes of wheat was highly vulnerable to damage while another 1.4 million tonnes has medium risk and remaining had minimal risk.

In a desperate attempt to save the grains,the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has been asked to raise the stack heights of foodgrain bags in its godowns to create an ad hoc additional capacity to meet the urgent requirement of space. This way,FCI would be able to accommodate 5-10 lakh tonnes more stock, Thomas said.

On Tuesday,the government decided to offload five million tonnes of foodgrain in the public distribution system at highly subsidised prices for BPL families with an estimated subsidy burden to the tune of about Rs 8,500 crore to liquidate the old stock to create space for the freshly procured wheat this season.

The bumper wheat procurement of over 36 million tonnes this season has compounded governments storage problems with government stocks crossing 82 MT as on June 1 that far outstrips the covered storage space (little under 64 MT) for foodgrain across the country.

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