By IANS,
Nagpur : The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government will do all it can to contain the food grains price rise, including buying stocks from the domestic and international market and providing it to the poor at affordable rates, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said Monday.
“The government is seized of the grave matter and constantly examining ways and means to provide relief to the poorer sections and middle class of the society,” Pawar said at a meet-the-press programme organized by the Nagpur Union of Working Journalists (NUWJ).
Reiterating his position that the present inflation was a part of the global phenomena, Pawar pointed out that the prices of wheat and rice in the country are still lowest in the world.
“The United States is diverting large chunks of wheat producing land towards the production of maize for bio-fuel, and another major wheat producer Australia is facing drought for two years leading to shortages and consequent price rise and restricting exports,” he said.
The other factor, Pawar said, was the freedom given to farmers to grow what they like and sell their food-grain produce to the traders who would pay them more with the government playing the role of a buyer competing with private traders.
“The wheat production in the country has been steadily going up over the last few years but the government does not have enough stocks,” Pawar said, adding that the government would not flinch from procuring more food-grains even if it meant paying more for it and making it available at affordable rates through the public distribution system.
Pointing out that the minimum support price (MSP) for wheat – Rs.1,000 per quintal – is the highest so far that the government is paying, Pawar said the government has to additionally pay 12.5 percent ‘mandi’ charges and spend a lot on other operations like weighing, packing and transport.
“The rise in demand for food-grains vis-à-vis supply is another domestic factor contributing to the price rise,” the agriculture minister said.
“The demand has grown because the national employment guarantee scheme, in which the government has pumped in Rs.160 billion in the last three years, has increased the purchasing power of the poor – a fact one should be happy about,” he said.
Clarifying a misunderstanding about his remark on the changing food habits in the southern states leading to the wheat availability crisis, Pawar said, there was a spurt in demand for wheat from the southern and north-eastern states – compared to the negligible demand four years back.
“When I asked the reason for this, I was told that bakeries have sprung up in all tehsil places in the south because bread has become an essential ingredient of the young generation’s breakfast,” Pawar said.
On the 2-hectare cap in the Rs.600 billion farm loan waiver, Pawar said the information the government gathered from the states showed that 81 percent of the country’s farmers have a land holding less than two hectares.
Admitting that the percentage of below-two hectares farmers in dry-land farming areas like Vidarbha and Marathwada is much less than the average, Pawar said a scheme is being worked out for extending the benefit to those left out.
“It will still not cover all the farmers in the country as that would lead to the collapse of the entire banking system, jeopardizing the savings and deposits of account holders down to the lower middle class rungs of the society,” Pawar clarified.