Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) The government has asked states to fix and maintain limits on food grain stocks till April 31, 2009 to keep their prices under control.The states are required to fix stock limits for edible oils and oilseeds and take necessary action against the hoardings and speculation.

With annual inflation at 12.63 percent for the week ended Aug 9, the government has been requesting the states for quite some time to comply with the stock limit norms.

“The states have been delegated under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 to impose suitable stock limits on certain essential commodities to check hoarding of food grains and resultant price rise,” the government said here.

There is, however, no decision about extending the ban on exports of rice, wheat and pulses.

The Cabinet Committee on Prices (CCP) in March banned the export of non-basmati rice, and increased the minimum export price (MEP) for basmati rice to $1,200 per tonne.

Export of pulses and wheat is already been banned till April 30, 2009, a decision that the government took last year.

The government has also banned the export of edible oils with effect from March 17 for one year. The export of maize has been banned till Oct 15.

The government has the target to achieve production of 129 million tonnes of rice by 2011-12 at a growth rate of 3.7 percent, along with other food grain.

India’s food grain production was estimated at 230.67 million tonnes in 2007-08.

As per the fourth Advance Estimates of Crop Production for 2007-08, food production rose 13.39 million tonnes to 230.67 million tonnes, as compared to 217.28 million tonnes in 2006-07.

The production of rice stood at 96.43 million tonnes, wheat 78.40 million tonnes, coarse cereals 40.73 million tonnes, maize 19.31 million tonnes, pulses 15.11 million tonnes, and oilseeds 28.82 million tonnes.