Wheat New Delhi/IBNS: Food Corporation of India (FCI) has sold 18.05 lakh MT wheat in the open market in a bid to cool down sharply rising prices of wheat and flour, the Food Ministry said Friday.
On January 25, the Centre decided to increase the supply of the wheat market by selling 30 lakh MT in the open market.
The ministry said about 11 lakh MT of wheat has already been lifted by successful bidders which is available in the market.
“Pertinently, the government of India remains committed to safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders and has been reducing the reserve prices after the feedback received from various parts of the country,” it said.
Roller Flour Millers and traders during an interaction have assured that the benefit of the highly subsidised sale of wheat under the Open Market Sales Scheme, Domestic or OMSS (D) will be adequately passed on to consumers, it added.
FCI sold 5.07 Lakh MT wheat in its third e-auction to 1269 bidders at a weighted average price of Rs. 2172/Qtl through 620 locations in 23 states, as per the ministry.
In the third auction, FCI offered 11.79 Lakh MT wheat on 22nd February 2023 for sale in the open market at reserve prices of Rs. 2150/Qtl and 2125/Qtl for Fair Average Quality (FAQ) and Under Relaxed Specifications (URS) quality wheat respectively.
Open sale of wheat through e-Auction will take place every Wednesday till March 15, 2023, in an effort to augment wheat availability and safeguard the interests of consumers.
The first auction was conducted on February 1 and 2, 2023 in which 9.13 lakh MT was sold to 1016 bidders at a weighted average price of Rs 2474/Qtl.
A total of 3.85 lakh MT was sold in the second auction on February 15, 2023, to 1060 bidders at a weighted average price of Rs. 2338/Qtl.
The maximum number of bidders bought wheat in the range of 100 MT to 500 MT showing the active participation and interest of small and medium traders and millers to contain the rising wheat and Atta prices, the ministry said.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
