April 14, 2011
 

Indian wheat arrivals continue to be low

Even as the harvest festival of Baisakhi is being celebrated throughout Punjab, wheat arrivals in the state's grain markets remained slow.

Food and supplies officials said on Wednesday (Apr 13) that just 10,079 tonnes of wheat had been purchased in various grain markets till Tuesday (Apr 12) evening.

This is far below the 947,560 tonnes of wheat procured by six government agencies and private millers within the same duration beginning April 1, last year. "So far, the arrival of wheat across the mandis (grain markets) has been slow. Some markets have not received any wheat at all. This is mainly because of the inclement weather over most parts of the state in recent days," a food and supplies official said.

However, agriculture and food and supplies officials, who are predicting a bumper crop this year like in the past two years, said that the wheat arrival is probable to improve from the coming weekend. "The arrivals will pick up next week. It will be another good crop this year. The state will cross the 10 million tonnes procurement mark again," the official added.