Blaming Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar for the unprecedented rise in price of food and other essential commodities, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday demanded his immediate removal from the post.
Pawar convened a meeting of senior officials and took stock of the situation in the agriculture, which would require a fresh impetus in the face of increasing debt burden on farmers despite loan waivers. He takes over the reigns of the agriculture affairs when the country has harvested a bumper foodgrain production and the central pool are overflowing with wheat and rice.
The Union Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Agriculture, Sharad Pawar, who also doubled as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and has now become president of the International Cricket Council (ICC), has reportedly pleaded with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his ministerial burdens be reduced so that he can devote more of his time to his cricketing responsibilities.
Sharad Pawar reckons that the NCP has value as a united, going concern, not as a gaggle of leaders in search of followers, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Food prices in India, which rose an annual 18 percent in January, have started falling and will dip further next month, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Friday said that the decline in prices of most agricultural commodities in coming weeks will bring down the food inflation, which is 12.63 per cent now.
"That 0.2 per cent rise in food inflation is temporary... This (rise in food prices) is not the trend," Pawar said on the sidelines of an Indian Council of Agricultural Research Award ceremony in New Delhi.
India would be represented by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday night on a three-day visit.
While the progress of the monsoon has brightened the prospects of foodgrain production, the fall in sown area is a matter of concern, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar tells Sanjay Jog.
Food inflation touched 17.40 per cent for the week ended January 16 on account of high prices of vegetables and pulses.
The government on Wednesday said prices of the food articles might come down only after the ensuing Rabi season. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said that due to the impact of the scant monsoon and the impact of floods, prices would not come down immediately.
Food inflation rose to 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, because of rise in prices of food items like onion, milk and meat.
A decision on the legal right of the poor to get wheat or rice at Rs 3 per kg was deferred on Thursday as Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar could not attend the meeting of a panel of ministers on the Food Security Bill on health grounds.
The bill, considered by many in the Congress as a gamechanger which could boost its prospects in the Lok Sabha election, was tabled in the Budget Session but could not be taken up for discussion as Opposition stalled Parliament over a rash of scams under United Progressive Alliance.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Friday said it will be difficult to decontrol sugar industry as many state governments, including the country's second largest producer Uttar Pradesh, are against freeing this sector.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said the government finds it difficult to balance the responsibility of giving better price to farmers and at the same time providing food grains at cheaper rates to poor people.
RBI in its monetary policy review on Friday is expected to suck out liquidity from the system to prevent spread of inflation to manufactured items.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said there is no need to encourage foreign direct investment in the farm sector as large number of farmers have small holdings, but welcomed FDI in the food processing sector.
The National Food Security Bill was scuttled by Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar who threw the spanner with a dissent note in his capacity as the Union agriculture minister.
Virtually cocking a snook at the Congress Working Committee which had criticised Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar failing to control the price rise, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh praised the Pawar for doing a splendid job. The praise came just a day after the CWC meeting, when the prime minister addressed the chief ministers during a conclave on price rise.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation on Wednesday said global commodity prices were far from easing in the short term owing to tight supply-demand situation and warned of flare ups over food shortage.The UN FAO director general said the world has 4-5 million tonnes (MT) of cereals stocks that can feed the global population for only 8-12 weeks.
He wanted changes in certain criteria for the project.
Of the foodgrains damaged, 9,141 tonnes was rice while 2,486 tonnes was wheat.
Blaming the media for creating a confusion on milk prices, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said the Centre has no proposal to increase milk prices.
Pawar on a tour to the three Latin American countries, including Mexico and Argentina, will meet representatives of the sugar and the ethanol industries.
Stocks of sugar companies rose after the development. At the Bombay Stock Exchange, Bajaj Hindusthan, India's biggest producer, gained 4.25 per cent to close at Rs 121.35, Balrampur Chini gained three per cent and closed at Rs 88 while Renuka Sugars gained four per cent to Rs 68.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has convened a meeting of senior ministers on Tuesday to discuss the recommendations of the National Advisory Council on the Food Security Bill.
The government estimates the food subsidy bill to be Rs 490-500 billion this year from Rs 190 billion earlier, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told Rajya Sabha during Question Hour. The Centre issues rice at Rs 5.65 a kg and wheat at Rs 4.15 per kg to the states for supply through ration shops to families covered under the BPL category. Pawar, however, was non-committal on increasing the coverage of subsidised foodgrains to include more people.
In August, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, headed by Basudeb Acharia, had recommended to the government to stop all open-field trials of transgenic crops until it develops a better system of monitoring and oversight.
Concerned over poor budget allocation for the farm sector, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Sunday said it may be difficult to implement the proposed Food Security Bill without adequate funds to boost agri-output, a must for increased foodgrain requirement.
The two-day seminar, starting Thursdayday, is being conducted to form strategy for the coming Rabi season in consultation with states to compensate against the losses in many crops due to drought during the Kharif season.
As per official data, retail price of sugar has gone up to Rs 47 a kg in New Delhi from Rs 22 a year-ago.
Pawar alleged that the Centre neither consulted states this time, nor it called any meeting with state agriculture ministers before preparing these bills.
The retail prices of key pulses such as tur and urad have fallen by up to 22 per cent in metro cities over the last three months, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Friday.
With rains playing truant this season, the government on Wednesday said there will be no export of foodgrains for at least one year.
Nationalist Congress Party Supremo and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has dismissed the possibility of early general elections in view of government issuing food security ordinance, saying the "question does not arise unless and until the food reaches the people".
Making it clear that he was not opposed to the National Food Security Bill, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Friday said he would prefer it to be approved by Parliament after a debate.
The Congress has also asked the prime minister's office to co-ordinate better with various ministries over the issue of inflation.
In an exclusive interview with IBNLokmat, Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar has blamed the United Progressive Alliance for the spiralling prices of food items.
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