New Delhi: Food minister KV Thomas on Thursday blamed the Madhya Pradesh government for for lack of planning for record wheat procurement in the state, which has resulted in the current shortage of jute bags in the state.
“In November last year, we had estimated the requirement of the jute bags in consultation with the state government. The current shortage is because of lack of planning by the state government,” Thomas said at a workshop on Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) organised by the World Food Programme.
Opposition parties forced adjournment of the Lok Sabha on Thursday on the issue of non-availability of gunny bags to farmers for storage and transportation of grain.
Apprehensions about shortage of jute bags were also raised by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament on Tuesday. The finance minister had requested the West Bengal minister of industry to be in touch with the jute industry for increasing production of bags.
He had also assured Parliament that additional jute bags would be made available by the middle of this month.
The Madhya Pradesh government has taken up wheat procurement aggressively by offering R100 a quintal as bonus to farmers besides the minimum support price (MSP) of R1,285 per quintal. This year, the state is expected to procure a record 8 million tonne (mt) of wheat from the farmers against 5 mt purchased last year.
While plastic bags had been banned, the government had been following global norms for packaging of sugar, wheat and rice in biodegradable jute bags. Thomas said while Punjab and Haryana have experience in grain procurement, the emerging states like Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh were yet to gear up for the challenges of increase in procurement of grain.
“As the procurement by FCI and state owned agencies rise, we need to give new thrust to the aspect of storage through proper planning,” Thomas noted.
Recently, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chauhan met Thomas for discussing issues concerning shortage of jute bags.
Rise in grain production and rise in procurement by government agencies, including the Food Corporation of India (FCI), has created an acute shortage of jute bags for packing. Large quantities of wheat procured by government agencies in Madhya Pradesh and Punjab have been left in the open, which may adversely impact its quality.
Meanwhile, Thomas said: “We are looking at export of wheat from our stocks. There are some countries like Uganda, some Gulf nations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which need wheat.”
As reported by FE earlier, the country’s grain stocks held with the FCI and state government owned procurement agencies have crossed an all-time record of 71 million tonne at the start of this month, mainly due to record rice and wheat procurement.