India's Food Corp invites bids for local wheat sales

The state-run Food Corp. of India has invited bids for local wheat sales from federal grain reserves in 13 regions of the country, and plans to float similar tenders in another 12 regions, K.V. Thomas, junior agriculture and food minister, said in a written response to Parliament Tuesday.

However, the minister of state at the Ministry of Agriculture & Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, did not say by when Food Corp. will float the wheat sale tenders.

The federal government plans to sell 500,000 tonnes of wheat to large consumers such as processing units between October and December. India wheat stocks as of November 1 stood at 26.8 million tonnes.

India's farm minister said Tuesday the country has 30 million tonnes of wheat stocks against the government-set buffer norm of 16.2 million tonnes.