TDP demand on rice export conceded

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, DEC. 8. The Centre today decided to permit export of 20 lakh tonnes of rice from the stocks held by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to ease pressure on storage space and to facilitate fresh stocks of rice in the current `kharif' season.

It also conceded the demand of its crucial ally, Telugu Desam Party, for directly procuring up to 10 lakh tonnes of paddy along with State agencies in Andhra Pradesh as is being done in Punjab, and to enhance the admixture in `swaran masuri' variety from 10 per cent to 13 per cent so that rice millers would pay farmers a remunerative price for this popular variety of paddy grown in the State.

The decisions were taken after the Railway Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, and the TDP's Parliamentary Party leader, Mr. Yerran Naidu, jointly met the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, to press the demands. Ms. Banerjee was returning the TDP favour of supporting her demand for reduction of diesel price. Earlier, the Union Food and Public Distribution Minister, Mr. Shanta Kumar, had spoken to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP supremo, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, on the issue.

The TDP MPs continued their pressure on the Centre today by staging a two-hour dharna outside Parliament and raised slogans. Their main demand was direct procurement of 30 per cent paddy from the State and permission to export rice. Their allegation was that the FCI was slow in procurement and this was creating storage problems and forcing State farmers to go for distress sale.

Even when the Parliamentary Minister, Mr. Pramod Mahajan, Mr. Shanta Kumar and the Minister of State for Urban Development, Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya, came out of Parliament House to pacify the agitating MPs they refused to call off their dharna till they were instructed from Hyderabad by Mr. Chandrababu Naidu. The dharna was eventually called off after Mr. Yerran Naidu spoke to Mr. Chandrababu Naidu and met the Prime Minister.

Later Mr. Yerran Naidu told reporters that Mr. Vajpayee had assured them that export of rice would be permitted at a rate not lower than the Below Poverty Line population price, as was being done for wheat. He said it was agreed that the FCI and State agencies would buy 10 lakh tonnes of paddy from Andhra Pradesh and that ``the swaran masuri variety of paddy would be treated as Grade A and the permissible admixture would be enhanced from 10 to 13 per cent.'' `Swaran masuri' variety of paddy is graded as common variety in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh.

In Andhra, the procurement has been through mill levy orders issued by the State Government under which millers procure paddy and make available 50 per cent of resultant rice to the central pool. So far FCI has procured 10 lakh tonnes of rice in the current year, compared to 6 lakh tonnes procured in the corresponding period last year. It has also decided to lift 10 lakh tonnes of rice in December and 9 lakh tonnes in January, 2001.

On Thursday, Mr. Shanta Kumar said the FCI would procure up to 40 lakh tonnes rice from the State. The Centre has already issued orders restricting the movement of rice from North to Andhra Pradesh and to meet the demand of the Southern States from the rice procured in Andhra Pradesh.

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