Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. The bread and roti on your plate may become cheaper in the coming days as the prices of wheat are more likely to come down. To control the ongoing rise in wheat prices, the government is preparing to sell wheat from its stock in the open market. Food Corporation of India (FCI) will sell 20 lakh tonnes of wheat from its stock in the open market under the Open Market Sale Scheme. FCI will sell this wheat to flour mills to bring down the prices of wheat and flour in the wholesale and retail markets. In fact, last week the government stopped the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. Now the government will provide 5 kilos of food grains free of cost to 81 crore families under food security. After this decision of the government, FCI will have 113 lakh tonnes of wheat stock in its warehouse, which is more than the buffer stock limit of 74 lakh tonnes. FCI will first provide wheat to small flour mill owners.

Huge jump in wheat prices in 2022

After a huge jump in the prices of wheat and flour, the flour mill owners were constantly demanding from the government to make wheat available under the open market sale scheme. According to government data, the price of wheat has reached Rs 2877 per quintal in the wholesale market on December 26, while on November 26 the price was Rs 2719 per quintal. The price of flour in the wholesale market reached Rs 3219 per quintal, which was Rs 3219 per quintal on 26 September. It is believed that FCI will sell wheat in the open market at Rs 2250 per quintal, which includes transportation cost. In 2018-19, FCI sold 81 lakh tonnes of wheat in the open market, which came down to 25 lakh tonnes in 2020-21. While 70 lakh tonnes of wheat was sold last year.