The Hindu Business Line : Grains offtake plummets 15 pc due to lower stocks

, The Food Corporation of India's (FCI) precarious stocks position has led to a 15 per cent dip in total offtake of foodgrains from the Central pool this year.

According to the Department of Food and Public Distribution's latest monthly bulletin, the aggregate offtake of grains during April-May 2006, at 57.63 lakh tonnes (lt), was 14.6 per cent below the 67.51 lt lifted over the same period last year.

The decline has been even sharper, at 25 per cent (from 27.62 lt to 20.73 lt), for wheat. Rice offtake has fallen marginally by 7.5 per cent, from 39.89 lt to 36.90 lt.

The lower lifting basically reflects the grain inventories with the FCI, which, as on June 1, were slightly over a third of their peak of around 650 lt four years ago.

That has considerably reduced the scope for liberally allocating grains from the Central pool for exports and assorted new welfare schemes, as used to be the case earlier.

To view things in perspective, total offtake of grains amounted to 496.34 lt in 2002-03 and 493.32 lt in 2003-04, which is around 41 lt per month. These fell in 2004-05 and 2005-06 to 414.75 lt and 419.79 lt, respectively or roughly 35 lt per month.

This has dropped to below 29 lt this fiscal, which means 12 lt of less grain being released per month over the surplus situation in the 2002-04 period.

Much of this economising has been on wheat, where monthly offtake levels are now down to hardly 10 lt, against 20 lt during 2002-03 and 2003-04 and 15 lt in 2004-05 and 2005-06.

But in rice, the Government has managed to keep up monthly lifting of 18-20 lt all through.

This again is the result of a completely contrary trend, wherein procurement of wheat during the 2006-07 rabi marketing season (April-June) has plunged to a 10-year low of 92.25 lt.

As against this, rice procurement in the ongoing 2005-06 season (October-September) is an all-time-high of 272.62 lt and looks set to touch 290 lt.