New Delhi, July 7 : The government may fall short of achieving the rice procurement target of 275 lakh tons by five lakh tonne in the current marketing season.

“We have procured about 263 lakh tonne of rice so far. The procurement is expected to reach 270 lakh tonne,” a senior government official said.

However, Food Corporation Of India chairman and managing director Alok Sinha had last month expressed confidence of achieving the target of 275 lakh tonne of procurement in the 2007-08 marketing season ending in September this year. The total rice procurement stood at 251.07 lakh tonne in the previous season.

As a result of likely fall in procurement this year, the Centre may not have surplus stock to create a 20 lakh tonne of strategic reserve for rice.

The government had decided to create a strategic reserve of 50 lakh tonne of foodgrains comprising 30 lakh tonne of wheat and 20 lakh tonne of rice. The reserve would be created after meeting the buffer stock requirement.

However, the government would not find any problem in creating a strategic reserve for wheat from this year’s procurement. It has procured record quantity of 223 lakh tonne so far against the targeted 150 lakh tonne.

95.68The estimated rice production (in million tonne) for 2007-08

93.35The total rice production (in million tonne) for 2006-07