Views of experts welcome, govt goes by its rationale: Agri Sec

Appreciating concerns of experts over key policy decisions, Agriculture Secretary Shobhana K Pattanayak today said the government has its own rationale when it decides on contentious issues like banning exports of farm commodities or allowing imports.
"The policy (of pulses import) may look slow. One may ask why you take decisions so slow. Suddenly, we ban commodities that we exported.
"It may be unscientific for economists and who has seen the global market. But the government has its own rationale," Pattanayak said while releasing the 'India Commodity Year Book 2016' edited by agri-logistics firm NCML Managing Director and CEO Sanjay Kaul.

The government, she said has "solid reasons when it takes decisions. It is not without basis that it takes decisions."
Pattanayak said while referring to some critical comments made in the book like delay in pulses import to meet shortages in the domestic market.
The book said: "The government could have anticipated the (pulses) situation and resorted to timely imports, which it failed to do ... The domestic production will continue to remain much lower than domestic demand, hence recourse to smart and adequate imports appears to be the only way out."

Stating that the book has given "certain perspective which the government may not entirely agree with," the Secretary however said the government will take serious note of the suggestions and will see if they can be implemented to provide better future for farmers and other stakeholders.

This is the seventh successive year the book has been published by National Collateral Management Services (NCML). The book contains a rich commodity data of last 10 years and forecast for the current and next year.
It focuses on commodity inflation and monetary policy, the national agricultural market, commodity futures market, food politics, implications of SEBI-FMC merger on commodities market, weather insurance besides commodity specific articles on pulses and cotton.