{"id":35925,"date":"2023-06-17T03:58:11","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T22:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35925"},"modified":"2025-04-21T13:29:55","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:59:55","slug":"why-did-the-government-impose-a-ceiling-on-wheat-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/why-did-the-government-impose-a-ceiling-on-wheat-stocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did the Government Impose a Ceiling on Wheat Stocks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Background (Context)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Current Permissible Stock Limits?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Additional Orders?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Need for These Orders?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What About Production?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Background (Context)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, the <u>Union Government has imposed limits on stock of wheat that can be held by traders, wholesalers, retailers, big chain retailers and processors<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>This has been done in order to manage the \u201coverall food security and to prevent hoarding and unscrupulous speculation\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>The objective here is to stabilise the price of the essential commodity by steadying supply.<\/li>\n<li>The Department of Food and Public Distribution stated that there was enough stock of wheat in the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00b7 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Current Permissible Stock Limits?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>permissible stock that traders\/wholesalers can hold is 3,000 metric tonnes<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Retailers and big chain retailers can hold up to 10 metric tonnes at each of their outlets.<\/li>\n<li>Processors would be able to stock 75% of the annual installed capacity.<\/li>\n<li>The mentioned entities are expected to declare their stock positions and <u>update them regularly on the Department of Food and Public Distribution\u2019s portal<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>If the stock held by them are higher than the limit, they will have 30 days from the day of issue of notification to bring the same under the prescribed limits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Additional Orders?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The government has also decided to <strong>offload 15 lakh tonnes of wheat from the central pool via the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS)<\/strong> to flour mills, private traders, bulk buyers, manufacturers of wheat products through e-auction.<\/li>\n<li>The idea is to control retail prices of wheat. They would be sold in lot sizes of 10 to 100 metric tonnes.<\/li>\n<li>This would be the first tranche, and more could be released depending on the prices and demand.<\/li>\n<li><strong>About Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) \u2013<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Food Corporation of India<\/strong> sells surplus stocks of wheat and rice under Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic) at pre-determined prices through e-auction in the open market from time to time to enhance the supply of food grains.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\u00a0<\/h2>\n<h2><strong>What is the Need for These Orders?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The government issued these orders in the backdrop of rising concerns about the overall wheat output taking a hit after the <strong><u>unseasonal rains and hailstorms towards the end of March and early April alongside hotter temperatures in February<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Lower production leads to higher prices of the crop.<\/li>\n<li>This could in turn create conditions for local prices exceeding the government\u2019s purchase prices and thus, bothering the latter\u2019s endeavour to stock up supplies.<\/li>\n<li>The government had set a <strong>target of procuring 341.5 lakh metric tonnes of wheat<\/strong> for the Central Pool in the ongoing Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) 2023-24.<\/li>\n<li>However, as on June 12, <strong>261.99 lakh metric tonnes of wheat have been procured<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What About Production?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>On Feb 21, the India Meteorological Dept (IMD)\u2019s forecasts held that <strong>maximum temperatures were likely to be above normal by 3 to 5 degree Celsius over northwest, central and western India<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The IMD had assessed the higher day temperatures might lead to \u201c<strong>adverse effect<\/strong>\u201d on wheat crops as it approaches its reproductive growth period, which is sensitive to temperature.<\/li>\n<li>This period was followed by major wheat producers as Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana experiencing <strong>strong thunderstorms with lightning and gusty winds alongside hailstorms<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Moreover, over 5 lakh hectare of wheat crop was estimated to have been damaged in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is the role of Food Corporation of India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Central Government, through Food Corporation of India (FCI), has assumed the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains to the State Governments.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) Which are the largest wheat producing states in India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The leading wheat-producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttarakhand.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/agri-business\/explained-why-did-the-govt-impose-a-ceiling-on-wheat-stocks\/article66969902.ece#:~:text=The%20story%20so%20far%3A%20On,big%20chain%20retailers%20and%20processors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Explained | Why did the government impose a ceiling on wheat stocks?<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Union Government has imposed limits on stock of wheat that can be held by traders, wholesalers, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}