The Indian government may fall short of achieving the rice procurement target of 27.5 million tons in the current marketing season, the Indian Express reported Tuesday.
"We have procured about 26.3 million tons of rice so far. The procurement is expected to reach 27 million tons," a senior government official said.
However, Food Corporation of India chairman and managing director Alok Sinha in last month expressed confidence of achieving the target of 27.5 million tons of procurement in the 2007-08 marketing season ending in September this year, the report said.
The total rice procurement in India stood at 25.1 million tons in the previous season.
As a result of likely fall in procurement this year, India's government may not have surplus stock to create a 2 million ton of strategic reserve for rice.
The government had decided to create a strategic reserve of 5 million tons of food grains comprising 3 million tons of wheat and2 million tons of rice.
With sufficient quantities of wheat being bought in the new season, the government would not find any problem in creating a strategic reserve for wheat from this year's procurement, the report said.
India has procured record quantity of 22.3 million tons of wheat so far against the targeted 15 million tons.
Source:Xinhua
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