External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will head the wheat import committee formed by the government to study the issue. | |
| Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar informed this at the India International Potato Expo, 2008, in Kolkata on Friday. The other members of the committee are Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the planning commission. The members would meet on the 17th of this month and assess the situation, Pawar said. |
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| "Our stock position is comfortable, but we are importing wheat to maintain the buffer stock. Except for one year in the last 54 years, we have never had a wheat production of 75 million tonnes. This year, the production is 74.5 million tonnes. Due to changing food habits, there is a demand-supply mismatch," Pawar said. |
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| The demand for food grains was also rising due to central government schemes like the rural employment guarantee scheme, he said. |
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| "We didn't see such high prices in the last six months. It has reached $400 from $180 a tonne earlier," the minister said. |
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| There was also a scarcity of rice in the international market as major exporting countries like Vietnam were considering a ban on the exports of rice, he said. On Friday, the situation is different from what it was few years ago. |
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| We need to increase productivity and also the production of oil seeds and pulses. If we do not take corrective measures, India can become a major importer of all of them, and face serious problems, said Pawar. |
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| Illegal rice exports to Bangladesh from West Bengal was also an issue of concern, he added. |
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