Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Agricultural Policy Paddy MSP set to get CCEA nod Harish Damodaran
New Delhi , July 22 THE Food Corporation of India (FCI) and State agencies will procure paddy during the forthcoming 2003-04 kharif marketing season at Rs 550 per quintal for common varieties and Rs 580 per quintal for Grade `A' varieties. These are the same rates at which paddy was purchased by the official procurement agencies in the 2002-03 season.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), in its meeting scheduled for Wednesday , is likely to give the go-ahead to the Agriculture Ministry's proposal to freeze the effective procurement price by merging the Rs 20 per quintal `special drought relief' announced last year with the basic Minimum Support Price (MSP). Thus, the MSP for 2003-04 would end up being raised from Rs 530 to Rs 550 per quintal for common paddy and from Rs 560 to Rs 580 per quintal for Grade `A' varieties. This is in contrast to the situation last year, when the corresponding MSPs were frozen at Rs 530 and Rs 560 per quintal. But for the farmer, what matters is the effective procurement price that he is obtaining and this has, in fact, would be left unchanged for the first ever time in history. During 2002-03, the country's production of rice (i.e milled paddy) plunged to 75.72 million tonnes (mt) — the lowest since the 1992-93 level of 72.86 mt - after reaching an all-time-high of 93.08 mt the previous year. Consequently, the FCI and State agencies have been to procure only 16.03 mt of rice during the ongoing 2002-03 marketing season (October-September) up to July 21, compared to the previous year's corresponding level of 21.25 mt. Rice stocks in the central pool have also fallen to 13.27 mt as on June 1, 2003, from 23.40 m.t on the same day last year. The prospects for rice production in the current year is bright on account of munificent monsoon rains across the country's major paddy belts. Cumulative rainfall during the current monsoon season from June 1 has so far been normal to excess in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, which together produce over 60 per cent of the country's rice.
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