Define open-ended procurement and discuss its limitations in India’s foodgrain management.
Subtopic: Agriculture · MSP & procurement
How to structure your answer
Introduction: Open-ended procurement — government commits to buy all marketed surplus offered at MSP; FCI rice/wheat stocks (Apr 2025) at ~57 MT vs strategic buffer norm 21.04 MT.
Body: 1) Distortions — paddy-wheat lock-in in Punjab-Haryana; groundwater stress, ecological damage. 2) Fiscal — Food subsidy ₹2.03 lakh crore Budget 2025-26. 3) Storage — open-CAP storage losses (CAG 2023 noted ₹6,000+ crore wastage estimates).
Way forward: Cap procurement at buffer norms with Decentralised Procurement; price-deficiency payment for excluded crops; nutrition-sensitive PDS with millets.
Written within the word limit
140 words · target 150 words · 9 min
Introduction: Open-ended procurement obliges the Food Corporation of India to buy all marketed surplus of paddy and wheat offered at MSP from notified mandis; FCI stocks in April 2025 stood at ~57 MT against the buffer norm of 21.04 MT, exposing structural over-stocking.
Body: First, it locks Punjab-Haryana into a paddy-wheat monoculture, depleting groundwater, inflating power subsidies, and crowding out pulses and oilseeds despite low domestic self-sufficiency. Second, fiscal pressure: food subsidy is ₹2.03 lakh crore in Budget 2025-26, plus PMGKAY's ₹11.8 lakh crore five-year extension from January 2024. Third, storage stress: CAG (2023) flagged over ₹6,000 crore wastage in CAP (cover and plinth) storage, while POSHAN 2.0 millet integration remains under-utilised and the MP wheat surge post-2014 strained logistics.
Way forward: Cap procurement at buffer norms via the Decentralised Procurement Scheme, deploy Price Deficiency Payment under PM-AASHA for excluded crops, and integrate nutri-millets into PDS by 2030 under MoCAFPD.
What an examiner expects to see
- FCI stocks ~57 MT (Apr 2025) vs norm 21.04 MT
- Food subsidy ₹2.03 lakh crore (Budget 2025-26)
- Open-ended procurement at MSP
- Decentralised Procurement Scheme
- Buffer norm: 21.04 MT (Apr 1, FCI)
- CAG flagged CAP wastage 2023
Concrete cases, schemes and judgments
- Punjab-Haryana paddy
- MP wheat (post-2014 surge)
- FCI Section 17 buffer norms
- POSHAN 2.0 millet integration