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Eminent economist, Mr Bimal Jalan, said the Centre should release more wheat and rice into the open market from its “large stocks”, a move that will help in taming food inflation. His comments come at a time when the government is also contemplating the relaxation of an export ban on wheat and rice.
“We have large stocks. We should not hesitate to release much more food grains like rice and wheat in the market,” the former Reserve Bank Governor told PTI.
For the week ending June 18, food inflation declined to 7.78 per cent from over 9.13 per cent in the previous week.
Both the Government and Reserve Bank had been maintaining that the high inflation is largely due to supply side constraints.
Food prices are rising even as the government godowns are overflowing on the back of bumper production and procurement in the last three-four years.
The government had record rice and wheat stocks of 65.59 million tonnes in its godowns at the beginning of June.
As per the buffer stock norm, government godowns should have 31.9 million tonnes as of July 1 of any year.
The former RBI Governor further said that if required, the government should not hesitate to import food items.
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