With food grain and agri commodities production set to fall due to drought, the government today said it will import those items that will be in short supply to meet demand.
"Decision is already there that whichever commodity will be in short supply, to maintain demand-supply mechanism, we shall go for imports," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said addressing state agriculture ministers here.
Already, there is a short supply of pulses and edible oil, he pointed out.
Mukherjee, however, said that the government will not announce the timing of the import to ensure that prices are not jacked up artificially by the international players.
"The moment news is spread that India is going for big import, the market prices are jacked up," he said.
On the impact of drought, the Finance Minister said that it does not affect only production, it has a cascading effect. Scanty rainfall will affect recharge of ground water.
He assured the country that the government has the experience to deal with such situations and "we need not lose confidence in ourselves."
The government will have an estimated 18 million tonnes of wheat as of April 1, 2010 and 13.6 million tonnes of rice as of October 1, 2009.
The buffer stocks, however, are much more than mandated and may, therefore, provide some relief in times of drought. "We are starting the drought year with good buffer stocks," Mukherjee said.
The Finance Minister complimented Pawar for huge stocks in the central pool, which have been the result of substantial hike in the support prices.
"In the last five years, substantial increase in the minimum support prices (MSPs) of foodgrains have been made — almost 150 per cent increase in the last five years. And the country reaped its dividend," Mukherjee said.
Nevertheless, the drought, declared in 246 districts across 10 states so far, has posed tough challenges before the government, as it has "cascading effects".
"Not more than 36 per cent of reservoirs were full till the day before yesterday. Naturally, it will have its impact on the availability of drinking water, apart from irrigation and ... It will have its impact on the generation of hydro electricity. Scanty rainfall will also affect the recharging of the ground water," he pointed out.
Mukherjee highlighted the need to adopt a "realistic, pragmatic and implementable action plan" to mitigate the impact of drought but also stressed that both the Centre and the states have to find a way out collectively.
"... And while doing so we will have to keep in mind that mere expression of our concern or frustration doesn't help us because nobody is going to solve our problems. Our problems have to be solved by ourselves," Mukherjee asserted.
Since much depends upon the productivity of different crops, Mukherjee asked states, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which has a fairly good share in the total cultivable land, to raise the yield level to offset some of the losses in acreage.
"So marginal improvement in productivity would give us substantial benefit in terms of absolute number," he said.
Not just in the increase in the production of farm items, the country has also adopted other measures in maintaining domestic supply like the curbs on the exports of foodgrains and sought to put to rest any speculation or 'misinformation' about exports.
"We are sometimes getting misinformation ... On exports. Exports have been banned. Exports of foodgrains have been banned," he said.
Speaking on the occasion, Rural Development Minister C P Joshi said the use of water in a particular crop should be factored in while fixing the MSP. "The MSP of crops that use less water should be raised," Joshi said.
Water level is likely to go down in some states, including Rajasthan, he said quoting NASA, and urged both the Centre and the States to intervene at the right time to counter the impact of drought.
