Punjab, the food bowl of the country, has scaled new milestone in wheat procurement with the government and private millers procured 105.37 lakh MT of wheat during the ongoing Rabi Marketing season.

State agencies have procured 10288698 tonnes of wheat till date while private mills procured 18423 tonnes. PUNGRAIN, PUNSUP and MARKFED procured 1602488 MT, 2378487 MT and 2233594 MT of wheat across the grain markets of the state.

The Food Corporation of India procured just 16 percent of the total wheat arrived in grain markets. Ferozpur, with total procurement of 12, 76,115 MT, has taken lead in procurement operations while Sangrur and Patiala attained second and third slot respectively.

FCI General Manager (Punjab), Dev Raj, said, "The daily arrival of wheat crop is still between 50,000 and 70,000 MT and with this kind of inflow of crop, the total arrival is expected to surpass 107 lakh MT during the end of current wheat lifting season."  

The state had also set record during the last season when total wheat arrival stood at 105.83 lakh MT. Earlier, the another agrarian state, Haryana, also set record to procure 65 lakh MT of wheat during the current season against 64.61 lakh MT in 2001-02.