“Quickening pulses ( Business Line , May 10) offered timely suggestions for procurement of pulses by the Government as that will ensure equitable distribution, feeding the demand-side requirements and help maintain buffer stock, thereby substantially moderating price fluctuations in times of contingency.

This will help avoid situations as seen in the case of the recent spike in onion prices when the authorities concerned pleaded helplessness. But the procured stocks must be well conserved with proper planning, so as not to repeat incidents such as wheat wastage that benefit none and further bog down the foodgrain acquiring organisation in controversies.

The cultivation of pulses must be accelerated both extensively and intensively, if necessary with special schemes. Achieveing highe output is quite doable, as suggested, at the threshold of the forthcoming 12th Five-Year Plan, with the convergent strategy of policy-makers, scientists and growers.

B .Rajasekaran

Bangalore

Reviving Air India

Is Air India a viable entity economically? Banks will have to convert the entire working capital of thousands of crores to very long-term loans at low rate of interest and lend further working capital to run the airline. Of course, the government will also contribute financially. Will throwing more good after bad solve Air India's problems of bloated bureaucracy, indiscipline, corruption and nepotism, apart from government interference and competition from private airlines?

Either way, the tax-paying public and banks that lend public money to Air India will be making a huge sacrifice, the end-result of which appears to be highly uncertain today.

S. K. Nair

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