Govt to reduce Bharat Atta price by ₹2/kg in festive sop

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The government plans to offload a quarter of a million tonnes of wheat into the country’s vast food distribution system and offer cut-price whole wheat flour made from it in the run-up to the last festival season of its term. Under the plan, the Centre will slash the price of its Bharat Atta brand to ₹27.50 per kg from the existing ₹29.50 a kg, a senior government official said.

This comes against the backdrop of the all-India average wheat flour price rising 4.1% this year to ₹35.84 per kg. “The Centre will offload 250,000 tonnes of wheat to Kendriya Bhandar, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and the National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India Ltd (NCCF) from its central pool and the semi-government and cooperative organizations will convert it to atta or wheat flour and then sell it to consumers through various retail outlets at ₹27.50 a kg," the official said.

“This is one among the many initiatives for the government to keep prices in check. This is being done to send a signal to the market that if the trade does not behave in the right manner, the government is here to intervene and use its tools," the official added.

Wheat will be offloaded at ₹21.50 a kg as usual, and the margins of these agencies will be capped at ₹5 per kg grinding to flour and packaging. Typically, converting wheat into atta costs around ₹1.80 a kg for big millers with a monthly milling capacity of 2,500-3,000 tonnes, and ₹2.50 per kg for small millers.