NEW DELHI: The raging controversy over the Government’s decision to import wheat is becoming curio-user and curio-user. With delay in contracting wheat, the controversy is acquiring murky political overtones. The political opinion is now reasonably confident that the bizarre case of wheat import is more of a “bungling” on the part of the government than a mismanagement on the economic front,

The reports about the Narasimha Rao government having expressed its inability to sell rice to Cuba under the American pressure, as a quid pro quo for contracting wheat has added yet another curious dimension to the whole issue. It has further sought to reinforce the Oppositions suspicion that the wheat import controversy has political dimension and there is much more to it than meets the eye.

What is indeed intriguing is the Governments cocky insistence that the decision to import one million tons of wheat is final and irrevocable. That the factors like beginning of arrival of wheat in the market with the onset of the Procurement season next month would have no bearing on the food situation, What is the point in importing wheat if the shipment does not reach here before the arrival of wheat in the market for procurement season next month would have no bearing on the food situation.

Even more ironical is the export import arithmetic for India for wheat, While India is having 10 purchase wheat from the US at the rate of 170180 US dollar per tonne; it is bound by the contract to export the food grain at the prices ranging between 92 US dollar to 109 per tonne.

Understandably, the Parliament has been agitated about it and two ministers of the Government, the Commerce Minister, Chidambaram, and the Food Minister, Tarun Gogoi, have been forced to make statement in both the Houses. That, however, has failed to satisfy the Opposition.

Since the word go, the announcement by the Government for import wheat has generated doubt and suspicion. The decision to import one million tons of wheat was made public on January 15, within a fortnight of the assertion made by Gogoi about comfortable Stock position of wheat as buffer. Gogoi is only lament at his New Year’s Press conference was that it was not a record production in the current year as it was in the previous year Of course, the minister did indicate that there was a shortfall of about 2.2 million tons in the buffer as on Jan.1 which would certainly plummet to a dangerously low level by April 1.

The announcement about the need to import wheat came as a rude shock as there could not be a more telling paradox in a nation’s food policy. On the one hand, India had the contractual obligation to export 80,000 ton wheat in the month of January alone the need to import the foods grain could not be overemphasized in the views of the Food ministry. The Commerce Minister told the Lok Sabha on March 6 that during the period between April 1, 1991 and February 20, 1992, 6,72,6000 MTs of wheat had been exported.  As for the year 1992-93, no decision on the quantity of wheat to be exported had been taken, according to the minister.

Such was the disbelief over the wheat import decision that it fueled speculation as to whether the Government was resorting to a ploy to beat the traders at their game and make them release grains in the market to ease the price situation. If that was the strategy of the government, it did not work out a planned. The grains did not arrive in the market and the prices kept rising.

Article extracted from this publication >> March 27, 1992