Government has directed Food Corporation of India to conduct e-auctions of wheat and rice to check inflationary trends in retail prices.
Addressing the media in New Delhi today, Chairman and Managing Director, FCI Ashok Meena said, the base price of fair and average quality wheat has been been kept at two thousand 150 rupees per quintal and two thousand 125 rupees per quintal for wheat under relaxed specifications.
He said, in order to control the hoarding of wheat, the government has decided that the declaration in the Wheat Stock Monitoring System portal is mandatory for participation in the auctions. In addition to this, to identify the genuine processors and traders, the valid FSSAI License has also been made mandatory for participation.
The maximum quantity that a buyer can bid is limited to 100 Metric tonnes in this e-auction. To accommodate the small wheat processors and traders, the minimum quantity has been kept to 10 Metric tonnes.
The bidding is also limited to the local buyers by ensuring that the GST registration of the State is mapped and checked before stocks are released. The e-auction for rice under Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic) will commence from 5th of next month. The base price of Rice is three thousand 100 rupees per quintal.
Six weekly e-auctions of wheat were conducted by Food Corporation of India till 15th of March this year. The total quantity of over 33 lakh metric tonnes wheat was offloaded and the prices of Wheat came down by 19 per cent due to this massive intervention in a span of 45 days.
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