Wheat woes

This refers to ‘Sowing discontent’ by Amiti Sen ( From The Viewsroom , December 14). It is not clear why import duty on wheat has been removed, when the Government has estimated wheat production at 93.5 million tonnes, with seven per cent increase over the previous year.

One has to assume that this estimation is wrong. It seems that the decision for the removal of import duty has been taken after wheat prices hit a record high last month.

It is also reported that Australian wheat is available in India’s southern ports at $235 per tonne, which is 20 per cent cheaper than local supplies. In that case, why duty cut now?

Now the import may touch 5 million tonnes of wheat, which will be the highest in a decade.

The duty cut is without any end date. As supplies from local crop may start rising from April onward, the Government must put an end date for this duty cut.

The Government has to take a balanced view to protect our farmers and consumers.

S Kalyanasundaram

Email

The government first reduced the import duty on wheat from 25 per cent to 10 per cent in September this year, and now has scrapped it.

While tonnes of wheat are rotting in FCI godowns and has been declared unfit for consumption, what is the need for importing wheat and scrapping duty?

This will further worsen the economic position of farmers. In this election year, the government has placated voters at the farmer’s cost.

Punjab should oppose the import of wheat. The retail prices of wheat have risen because of the mismanagement of the FCI and other related departments.

P Arihanth

Secunderabad

With the poor, really?

Launching a scathing attack on the BJP government, former finance minister P Chidambaram termed demonetisation as the biggest scam of the year and demanded a thorough probe. The rich are not affected but it is the poor who are hurt, according to him. It is quite ironical to see Chidambaram, whose scam-tainted government introduced several anti-poor policies, now speak for the poor.

KA Solaman

Alappuzha, Kerala

Fix it before its too late

GST was to herald a epochal shift in fiscal management. Decades of effort amidst differing political stances of parties and areas of abrasion between states and Centre,were almost reconciled. Then came the Bodhi tree moment of demonetisation. In the clash of these two tectonic plates, GST would tend to go under. It might be for the good ,as it gives time for all to fine tune some select policy aspects and tie up loose ends.

The greater worry must be the rapid change in external global environs, political and economic.

All this was not our choosing, but the 8/11 was of our deliberate making.

The sooner we resolve running issues with speed and capacity,the better placed we would be in sustaining our economy and trade.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad

Farm policy failure

This is with reference to ‘Nutritional crisis a failure of farm policies’ by G Chandrashekhar (December 14). While analysing the nutrition crisis, there are many long term and short term issues. Long term issues are water management, fragmented land holding, land ceiling Acts, tenancy Acts. But the most serious issue is that despite pressure from foreign countries the government could not do away with the procurement of cereals.

Hence, the message to all farmers is that in case they want to insure the crops against vagaries of nature, they should produce coarse grains, which need minimum effort, with the government ready to buy it.

As far as proteins or the nutritional aspect of the food is concerned, farmers are conscious about it and continue to access them adequately.

But the larger problem is that the vast population is deprived of costly, nutritious food.

RK Arya

Email

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