Wheat procurement to continue, crossed 20 million tonne mark

New Delhi, May 15 (UNI) The government will continue to procure wheat even as the fresh purchased stocks have crossed 20 million tonne mark and the official deadline for buying the new harvest expired today.

The Food secretary today clarified that procurement of wheat by government agencies including Food Corporation of India(FCI) would continue as long as farmers offer wheat at the Minimum Support Price(MSP) of Rs 1,000 per quintal.

India has a good wheat crop this year, expexcted to surpass earlier record production of 76 million tonne.

As foodgrains shortages looming large world over and food prices has spiralled, the government wants to mop up maximum food stocks to obiviate the chance of imports as the country has beenn doing for past three years.

Already, Finance Minister P Chidabaram said ''importing the high cost wheat from abroad means importing inflation in the country'', and the government is presently taking several steps to curb the inflation that has crossed 7 per cent.

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