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Govt says no curb on grain exports

The government said on Monday it did not plan to restrict exports of wheat and rice even though the winter crop is likely to be poor due to a patchy monsoon, since the country had enough grain stocks.

Traders have been speculating that the government might stop the sale of grains to exporters at subsidised rates in order to boost domestic supply at a time when the country is facing its worst drought in more than 15 years.

"There will not be any impact on exports," Food Minister Sharad Yadav told Reuters on the sidelines of a seminar on commodity exchanges, adding that the government did not plan to change its current grain export policy in the near future.

He said inadequate rainfall during the monsoon was likely to lower output of winter crops, sown in May-June and harvested in October-November, but did not give an estimate, saying the government was yet to get status reports from the provinces.

But he said government agencies had sufficient stocks.

The southwest monsoon, which runs from June to September, revived in early August after a dry phase in July. But rainfall between June 1 and August 14 was still 24 per cent lower than normal.

State-run food agencies, which buy grains from farmers at regulated prices for sale to the poor at subsidised rates, had a stockpile of 63 million tonnes of food grains on July 1 -- more than 30 per cent of the country's annual output.

This is much higher than the minimum stipulated inventory of 24 million tonnes.

India is likely to double rice exports to nearly four million tonnes in the year to March. It has exported about two million tonnes of wheat since April this year, against 2.7 million in the entire year ended March, according to trade estimates.

The country has set an export target of 15 million tonnes of food grains in the current year, a little less than double the 8.3 million tonnes it exported last year.

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