Wheat procurement process is slow: Pawar

India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar admitted in the Parliament that the procurement of wheat is slow, and time-consuming.

He said the wheat procurement is still in progress in major producing states.

As on May 8, the procurement of wheat in the current Rabi Marketing Season is 89.56 lakh (9 million) tonnes as against 91.21 lakh (9.1 million) tonnes procured in RMS 2006-07, Pawar told the Parliament.

He said this shortfall is due to late market arrivals this year, since harvesting of wheat in major wheat producing states in RMS 2007-08 was delayed as compared to last year, due to rains in February and March 2007.

Pawar pointed out that the procurement has also been slow due to higher percentage of manual harvesting of wheat in Punjab and Haryana as compared to last year.

Asked about the farmers' advanced payment by private companies to the procurement of wheat, Pawar said as per the present policy, farmers are free to sell their produce to the government agencies at the procurement prices (Minimum Support Price plus bonus) or to the private parties, as is advantageous
to

them.

He reiterated that "no quantitative restriction has been imposed on private parties for procurement of wheat, since this would be detrimental to the farmers
interest."

However, in order to check speculative tendencies, a notification titled Wheat (Stock Declaration by Companies or Firms or Individuals) Order 2007 has been issued under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.

The order provides that any company of firm or individual who purchase wheat beyond 50,000 tonnes during 2007-08 shall, furnish to the government a return indicating the name, address of the company, quantity of wheat purchased and quantity of wheat held in stock, Pawar said.