Foodgrains stocks for May 1 down 7.4% at 30 mt

India's grain stocks for May 1 was down 7.4 per cent at 30 million tonne from last year's stock. Wheat stocks on May 1 were down 17.4 per cent at 15.7 million tonne, according to latest official data available with CRISIL MarketWire Thursday.

Grain stock in the previous year was higher as it also included around 650,000 tonne of coarse grains. However, only negligible quantity of grain are in the stocks this year.

Rice stocks on April 1 were 14.3 million tonne, up from 12.7 million tonne a year ago, but due to the significant decline in wheat stocks, the overall grain stock was lower.

However, Food Corporation of India managing director V K Malhotra assured that there was no reason to panic over stock position.

Malhotra said wheat procurement so far this year has been lower at 13.9 million tonne against 15.0 million tonne in the same period of the previous year.

Malhotra also pointed out the corporation had enough grains to service the public distribution system for a full year.

Food Corporation is the nodal agency for grain procurement on behalf of the government. It maintains a central stock, which is used to run the PDS and meet exigencies. Lower wheat procurement will have no bearing on both the minimum buffer maintained by the government and supplies to ration shops under the PDS, Malhotra said.

He also termed the stock position as "comfortable".

Overall grain stocks are well above the minimum buffer of 16.2 million tonne that has to be maintained on April 1 every year. This includes 4 million tonne of wheat and 12.2 million tonne of rice.