The government has decided to partially restore wheat entitlements of beneficiaries under the Public Distribution System (PDS) by allocating 35 lakh tonnes (lt) of the grain until March 31, which may benefit at least 20 crore people to get 5 kg of wheat, each every month. The new allocation will be implemented from October.
Briefing media about 100 days achievements of the government, food secretary Sanjeev Chopra said that the government has decided to increase the current annual allocation of wheat by 35 lt to the PDS beneficiaries as part of restoration of earlier entitlements, which were cut in 2022 and adjusted with similar quantity of rice following a big drop in wheat procurement.
Currently, the FCI needs 184.6 lt of wheat annually to meet the obligation under the food security law and other welfare schemes. After this restoration, the wheat allocation will rise to 220 lt, but still short of 28 lt in terms of allocation. Before the wheat allocation was reduced and compensated with same quantity of rice, the wheat allocation was 248 lt whereas offtake was 217 lt in 2021-22.
Chopra also said that the government has approved a ₹1,000-crore credit guarantee plan under the electronic negotiable warehousing receipts (e-NWR) that will facilitate banks to disburse credit against crops. He said there is a potential of taking e-NWR credit to over ₹1 lakh crore in 10 years from ₹3,900 crore achieved in 2023-24.
The food secretary further said that wheat prices are stable and there is no shortage as the country had a bumper output last year. He ruled out any necessity to start open market sales of wheat to flour millers saying none of the three parameters is breached. The third parameter is overflowing stock with the government which is also not the case now, he added.
He hoped that food prices will be stable in the festival season.
