Chandigarh, April 24
Wheat arrival in the mandis of Punjab is down by almost 28 per cent and in Haryana by 13 per cent this year. Holding back of stocks by farmers in order to get better renumeration for the produce later, hand harvesting to earn from the sale of wheat straw and late maturing of the crop have led to the slow arrivals.

Official sources informed TNS that wheat arrival in Punjab till date was to the tune of 46.78 lakh metric tonnes as compared to 66 lakh metric tonnes till date last year. In Haryana, the total wheat arrival in various mandis was 22.21 lakh metric tonnes as compared to 25.56 lakh metric tonnes till date last year. Even in Khanna, which is the largest grain market in Asia, the total wheat arrival till date was just over 30,000 metric tonnes, as compared to the total wheat arrival of 75,000 metric tonnes all through last year.

Officials in both states, which contribute 80 per cent of the total wheat produce in the country, maintained that the arrivals were slow on account of late maturing of the crop, leading to a delay of almost a week in wheat arrivals. However, it is learnt that most of the large farmers in the region, with sufficient holding capacity, are stocking their produce in order to sell it later when the prices of wheat go up. As of now, the farmers are getting anything between Rs 850 (which is the minimum support price) to Rs 890 per quintal. The prices are expected to go up to Rs 1,100 per quintal in the coming six months.

Interestingly, most of the wheat crop in the two states has been procured by government agencies - a change from last year, when private players had played a significant role in the procurement process. While private players in Punjab have managed to procure just 4.08 lakh metric tonnes (as compared to 7.07 lakh metric tonnes last year), in Haryana, private traders have procured 2.14 lakh metric tonnes (down by 10 per cent from last year).

This year, Punjab is expecting the total wheat production to go up to 145 lakh metric tonnes with a maximum marketable surplus of 90 lakh metric tonnes. Haryana had projected its wheat production to go up to 96.63 lakh metric tonnes with a marketable surplus of about 50 lakh metric tonnes.