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HomePosts Tagged "Sanjeev Chopra"
AgroPolicy, Foodgrains, India

The government takes a series of steps for price stabilisation

Prices of essential food commodities remain stable in festival season, as the government has taken a series of steps for price stabilisation, said Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary, of the Department of Food and Public Distribution.

To ensure sufficient availability of sugar for domestic consumers at reasonable prices throughout the year, the Government of India has continued ‘restriction’ of sugar exports till further orders. This would also ensure healthy stocks of sugar in the country and maintenance of consistency in India’s efforts towards greener fuel under the Ethanol Blended with Petrol (EBP) Programme.

With this policy, the Government has again shown its commitment towards prioritising the interest of 140 crore domestic consumers while ensuring no constraints in sugar availability to them. It is noteworthy that despite international sugar prices being at 12 years high, sugar in India is among the cheapest in the world and there is only a nominal increase in retail sugar prices in the country, which is in tune with an increase in FRP of sugarcane for farmers. In the last 10 years, the average inflation in retail sugar prices has been about 2 per cent per annum.

In addition, the Government is monitoring the monthly dispatches of sugar mills to ensure sufficient availability of sugar in the domestic market. Further, all the Traders/Wholesalers, retailers, Big Chain retailers and Processors of Sugar have been directed to disclose their sugar stock positions on the portal enabling the government to monitor sugar stock across the country. These measures are intended to ensure better monitoring of the sugar sector and facilitate a sufficient supply of sugar in the market.

This sugar export policy would also ensure consistency towards the production of ethanol from sugar-based feedstocks. In ESY 2022-23, India has diverted about 43 LMT of sugar towards ethanol, which is expected to generate revenue of about ₹ 24,000 crores to sugar-based distilleries. This revenue has helped the sugar industry in clearing cane dues of farmers in time and making the sugar sector self-sufficient.

Appropriate Government policies on sugarcane and sugar have ensured that sugar mills have made payments of about ₹ 1.09 lakh crores and thus, cleared more than 95 per cent of cane dues of Sugar Season 2022-23 while 99.9% of cane dues of earlier seasons have been cleared. Thus, cane dues are at an all-time low level and efforts are being made to clear the balance dues also at the earliest.

The Government, in order to check the domestic prices and to ensure domestic food security, has taken several pre-emptive measures to restrict the export of rice from India. The export of broken rice was prohibited and an export duty of 20 per cent was imposed on non-basmati white rice on 9th September 2022. Subsequently, the export of non-basmati white rice was also prohibited on 20th July 2023.

In FY 2022-23, India exported 17.8 million tonnes of non-basmati rice and 4.6 million tonnes of basmati rice. Out of the non-basmati rice exports, around 7.8-8 million tonnes was parboiled rice. W.e.f. 25th August 2023, the export duty of 20 per cent has been imposed on the export of parboiled rice. The duty was initially imposed till October 15, 2023, which has now been extended to 31st March 2024. The purpose of extending the duty regime on parboiled rice is to keep a check on the price rise of this crucial staple and maintain adequate availability in the domestic market. This measure taken by the Government in August of this year has seemed to have the intended effect, as there has been a decline of 65.50 per cent in quantity terms and 56.29 per cent in value terms in the case of Parboiled rice. Further, Customs 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.

In spite of the prohibition on Non-Basmati White Rice, India has decided to relax restrictions on the export of specific quantities of non-basmati white rice to specific countries. The countries eligible for these rice exports include Nepal (95,000 MT), Cameroon (1,90,000 MT), Malaysia (1,70,000 MT), Philippines (2,95,000 MT), Seychelles (800 MT), Core d’Ivoire (1,42,000 MT), and the Republic of Guinea (1,42,000 MT), UAE (75,000 MT), Bhutan (79,000 MT), Singapore (50,000 MT) and Mauritius (14,000 MT).

The government takes a series of steps

AgroPolicy, Foodgrains, India, Supply Chain

Presently, the stock position at 9 depots is 30600 MT which is adequate against the total monthly allocation of 12000 MT under NFSA

The Centre has assured the Manipur government of complete support in ensuring that there is a sufficient stock of foodgrains in different parts of the State at all times and the NFSA beneficiaries are able to receive a regular supply of the entitled quantities.

Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary DFPD visited Imphal to review the functioning of NFSA in the wake of the recent law and order issues in Manipur. In the course of the visit, the DFPD Secretary met the Minister, of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (CAFPD), Govt of Manipur L. Susindro Meitei and Chief Secretary, Vineet Joshi. The Centre has allocated an additional quantity of 30,000 MT of Rice in view of the current law & order situation for a period of 3 (three) months- June 2023 to August 2023 to non-NFSA beneficiaries to the State Govt of Manipur.

Presently, the stock position at 9 depots is 30600 MT which is adequate against the total monthly allocation of 12000 MT under NFSA and 6500 MT under non-NFSA.

Besides, Department is exploring additional routes to ensure a smooth and seamless supply of foodgrains through various routes like from Dimapur, Silchar and Bairabi to Manipur state and inducting a total of 25500 MT of Rice in the state by the end of June’2023. The estimated stock position will be sufficient to meet the requirement in the coming month. The regular inflow of stocks will be maintained to ensure that there is no scarcity of food grains in any part of the state.

Presently, the stock position at 9 depots

AgroPolicy, India, Oilseeds, Supply Chain, Trade

The leading Edible Oil Associations were advised to take up the issue with their members immediately and ensure that the MRP of each oil is reduced in line with the decline in the international prices of edible oils with immediate effect

The decline in the price of Edible Oil should be passed on to consumers expeditiously, said, Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary DFPD during a meeting with the leading industry representatives.

The international prices of imported edible oils are on a downward trend which gives a positive scenario in the edible oil sector in India. Representatives from the Solvent Extraction Association of India (SEAI) and the Indian Vegetable Oil Producers’ Association (IVPA) were present to discuss a further reduction in the retail prices of cooking oils amidst a fall in global prices.

The industry informed that the global prices of different edible oils have fallen by $ 200-250 per tonne in the last two months, but it takes time to reflect in the retail markets and the retail prices are expected to come down shortly.

The leading Edible Oil Associations were advised to take up the issue with their members immediately and ensure that the MRP of each oil is reduced in line with the decline in the international prices of edible oils with immediate effect. Price to distributors (PTD) by the manufacturers and refiners also needs to be reduced with immediate effect so that the price decline is not diluted in any way.

It was also impressed upon that whenever a reduction in price to distributors is made by the manufacturers/refiners, the benefit should be passed on to the consumers by the industry and this Department may be kept informed on a regular basis. Some companies which have not reduced their prices and whose MRP is higher than other brands have also been advised to reduce their prices.

Other issues like price data collection and packaging of edible oils were also discussed in this meeting.

Earlier also, in pursuance of the Department’s meetings with leading edible oil associations, the MRP of edible oils such as Sunflower Oil, Soyabean Oil and Mustard Oil were reduced by the industry. The reduction in oil prices came in the wake of the reduction of international prices and reduced import duty on edible oils making them cheaper.  The industry was advised to ensure that the complete benefit of the reduced duty is passed on to the consumers.

With the edible oil prices beginning to show a downward trend and set to witness further reductions to be made by the edible oil industry, Indian consumers can expect to pay less for their edible oils. The falling edible oil prices will help in cooling inflation as well.

The leading Edible Oil Associations were advised