India has piled up food grain reserves of more than 47 million tonnes as of August-end, down by over 3 million tonnes from a month before, while procurement by government agencies has hit a fresh record of 58.39 million tonnes.
The food stocks have come down as the procurement season of wheat has ended and that of rice is set to be completed this month, while the offtake is continuing every month under the government's public distribution system.
A senior government official said the country has 17.21 million tonnes of rice and 30.07 million tonnes of wheat by the end of August, of which reserves with the Food Corporation of India account for about a half at 23.66 million tonnes.
The country's foodgrain stocks stood at 50.4 million tonnes as of July-end, which was enough to feed the country's one billion-plus population for close to three months.
Despite the decline in August, which the official said is a usual phenomenon, the stocks are all set to exceed buffer norms by a huge margin according to which India needs to keep food grain reserves of at least 16.2 million tonnes by October 1. India consumed 219 million tonnes of foodgrains in 2008-09.
The huge stocks are the result of an all-time-high procurement of wheat and rice. FCI, the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of food grains, purchased 25.29 million tonnes of wheat in 2009-10 marketing season, which runs from April-June. It has procured 33.10 million tonnes of rice till yesterday in 2008-09 marketing season (October- September).
The large stocks seem to bolster the Centre's initiative to fight back the impact of a poor monsoon as evident from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement last month that India had enough food grains not to let anyone stay hungry.
Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has said the country has sufficient food grains to meet the requirement under the PDS for as long as 13 months.
The country has witnessed 20 per cent less than normal rains till a week ago, seriously jeopadising the prospects of summer-sown crops like paddy.
Nevertheless, the huge reserves are expected to provide some cushion against the dampening impact of the poor monsoon.
India produced 99.15 million tonnes of rice and 80.58 million tonnes of wheat last year.
