5 Central teams to visit Punjab mandis, collect wheat samples

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 4

Even as the Punjab Government has decided to wind up wheat procurement operations from tomorrow, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has yet to decide on relaxing the specifications for the grain. Five teams from the Centre will begin their visit to mandis to collect samples of the shrunken and shrivelled grains from Thursday.

While one central team has reportedly arrived in Rajpura, four other teams will reach the state on Thursday. Over the next two days, these teams will collect wheat samples from all districts. The samples will be subjected to quality analysis, and the reports compiled by the FCI Regional Office will be sent to the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution for a final call on relaxing the quality norms.

The FCI has procured 6.12 LMT of wheat from Punjab so far. Till last week, the central food agency was not lifting wheat till the specifications were relaxed by the Centre. This led to a public outcry, following which the FCI started lifting wheat (subject to relaxations being announced by the FCI). Punjab’s wheat is shrivelled and shrunken beyond the permissible limit of 6 per cent.

The state government has already written to the Centre, asking it to relax norms and accept grains with 20 per cent shrinkage. This is the second time that the Central teams have come to collect samples. They had then concluded that in some districts the damage to grains was up to 40 percent.

Govt looks at open market option

Punjab officials say though they are confident that the Centre will procure shrivelled wheat (which is shrunken beyond the permissible limit of 6%) in case of an adverse decision, the state is prepared to sell it off in the open market, where the demand is at an all-time high because of the Russia-Ukraine war.

• 100.62 LMT wheat Arrival
• 100.55 LMT Total Purchase

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