NEW DELHI-Wheat Procurement Fiasco

NEW DELHI Wheat Procurement Fiasco B M INDIRA GANDHI's dash to Chandigarh to goad the Punjab and Haryana governments into better performance in procurement of wheat was something novel. It appears that Rao Birendra Singh, the Food and Agriculture Minis- ter, was found ineffective in dealing with the chief ministers of the two states who had ignored him when he asked for a greater role for the Food Corpora- of India in the procurement of wheat in Punjab and Haryana. According to the established arrangements, the FCI picks up only 20 per cent of the marketed surplus in the organised mandis of the two states and the rest is left to the state procurement agencies. Birendra Singh was also told rather brusquely by the two chief ministers that setting targets for procurement on the basis of inflated claims of production and without a proper policy framework was both unrealistic and irresponsible. His poor leadership