Prices of essential food items such as rice, wheat, sugar and edible oils are expected to rule stable during the festival season on the back of ample stocks in the country, Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said on Thursday.

Briefing the media on prices of essential commodities, Chopra said the Centre has no plans to relax curbs on export of rice and, if necessary, more wheat from the buffer stock could be sold in the open market. However, he ruled out any possibility of offering rice to any State for running its own scheme.

The secretary said the domestic supply position of wheat, rice, sugar and edible oils is comfortable and the stability in their prices may continue for the next 3-4 months.

Rice inflation projection

“We are not anticipating any manner of hike (in food item prices) in the festival season. Hopefully, prices should rule stable in the next couple of months,” Chopra said. He said rice inflation has been contained at 11-12 per cent, which is around that level over the past 3-4 months, due to various measures such as export curbs.

“There is a projection of 17-18 per cent inflation in rice, had there been no steps from the government,” Chopra said. Stressing that tools such as trade policy tweaks or imposition of stock limits have been used judiciously, he said these steps helped the Government to ensure prices remained stable.

The Food Secretary said the extension of 20 per cent export duty on parboiled rice till March 31, 2024, will ensure ample availability in the domestic market. After the imposition of the duty, there has been a decline in export of parboiled rice by 65 per cent in volume and 56 per cent in value until September 30.

Fiat to Customs

“Custom authorities have been given directions for stricter essential checks so that no other variety of rice can be exported in the guise of parboiled rice,” he said.

On wheat, he said the Food Corporation of India (FCI) so far has sold 25.6 lakh tonnes (lt) out of the 50 lt allocated under the open market sale scheme (OMSS) through e-auction. Besides, the Centre has also allocated 2.5 lt to NAFED, NCCF and Kendriya Bhandar at a reserve price of ₹2,150 per quintal so that these agencies will be able to sell atta at ₹27.50 per kg.

While the wholesale inflation in wheat has been recorded at 3.83 per cent, retail inflation has been contained at 3.6 per cent against 5.46 per cent increase in MSP during rabi 2023.

Chopra said edible oil stock position as of October 1 was higher at 36 lt against 25 lt a year ago and most of the oils are currently ruling lower than the year-ago period. “Only groundnut oil is higher by 1.8 per cent whereas retail prices of mustard oil, soyabean oil, sunflower oil and RBD palmolein are down by 16-27 per cent,” he said.

Highlighting that Indian sugar is among the cheapest in the world., he said only about 2 per cent retail inflation in the sugar sector has been reported in one decade whereas the increase in the government-fixed price of sugarcane is higher than it.

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