Food Corporation of India, the country's biggest buyer of food grains, expects to procure 9 per cent more rice from farmers in the year to March because of a bigger crop, helping bolster state reserves of the grain. | |
| The government will be able to buy 27.5 million tonnes in the period, up from 25.2 million tonnes a year ago, because of bigger harvests in the states of Punjab, Orissa, Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, Chairman Alok Sinha said in an interview yesterday. |
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| The country is building stockpiles of food staples to ease supply constraints and curb inflation that reached a two-year high in January. |
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| The government has raised prices it assures growers of wheat, rice and lentils, and banned exports of the commodities. |
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| "We have no doubt that we'll be able to procure sufficient rice, boosted by our key supplying states,'' Sinha said in New Delhi. "There will be no problem on rice supplies.'' |
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| The government will pay Rs 745 ($19) for a quintal (220 pounds) of the common grade of rice grown in the June-to-September rainy season, compared with Rs 695 announced in October. The price of the grade-A rice has been increased by Rs 50 to Rs 775. Prices have been raised thrice this year. |
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| India may harvest 93 million tonnes of rice this year, little changed from last year, the agriculture ministry said in September. |
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| The government buys food grains at guaranteed prices from farmers for distribution to the poor at subsidised rates through state-run shops across the country. The assured prices are meant to protect farmers from distress sales in the open market. |
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