Centre convenes meet on A.P. rice exporters' demands

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, APRIL 28 The Union Minister for Consumer Affairs and Distribution, Mr. Shanta Kumar, will soon hold a meeting of the high-level committee constituted with representatives from his department and from the Ministries of Commerce, Agriculture and Railways to discuss the issue of export of 20 lakh tonnes of rice from Andhra Pradesh.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Saturday, the Union Minister of State for Urban Development, Mr. B. Dattatreya, said this was in pursuance of a promise made by the Centre to the Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu. The meeting would consider requests put forth by exporters to relax the rules such as each exporter should come with a minimum quantity of 10,000 tonnes to enable himself to claim the accompanying subsidy accruing from the Centre and that they should provide bank guarantee for the subsidy amount to be claimed by them.

Mr. Dattatreya said he had spoken this morning to Mr Shanta Kumar and the FCI Chairman, Mr Burelal, and, following his complaint, the latter two pulled up the FCI Manager for West Godavari district, for coming out with ``lame excuses'' taking shelter under loopholes of existing rules, as and when farmers approached him. Similarly, FCI officials operating in East Godavari and Nalgonda were also ``warned''.

He said the Centre was committed to its promise to clear at least 70 lakh tonnes of rice from Andhra Pradesh, calculated both for kharif and rabi, by allowing export as a fourth benefit in addition to the three earlier benefits given to the State. Of 70 lakh tonnes on which the commitment was made, 35 lakh tonnes had already been purchased by the FCI.

The Minister said the FCI had called for international bidding for the export and the highest amount offered was Rs 675 per quintal. As this was not an economical price when viewed from the exporters' side, the Centre would have to offer a subsidy of Rs 275 or so per quintal to take the total price offered to Rs 920 per quintal at least.

Mr Dattatreya feared that the present rice/paddy glut might increase during the next season if the State Government did not move the stocks out of the godowns which were filled 25 per cent more than their full capacity. He asked the Chief Minister to take steps in this direction, starting with execution of earth works involving large number of villagers under the Food-for- Work Programme.

Mr. Dattatreya said the Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development who was incharge of Women and Child Welfare, Ms Sumitra Mahajan, was coming here on May 2 and 3 on a fact- finding mission regarding the child trafficking racket run by some ``fake'' adoption centres.

During the visit, the Minister would interact with State officials and visit adoption centres.

Mr Dattatreya, who represents Secunderabad, regretted that while only two adoption centres existed two years ago when the racket was first detected, the number had gone up to seven now. This was in spite of the so-called Government action. He said, the Central Adoption Resource Agency was only a licence-issuing authority and it was not a supervisory body. To fill this gap, the State Government should come out with a new law which could assign this supervisory role to State Government officials apart from banning exploitation of children. Till such time, the Government could launch stringent measures for the safety and welfare of children and to bring the culprits to book. The Government could understand the gravity of the situation going by the fact that a child lifted was being sold for Rs 3 to 8 lakhs.

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