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Under the Open Market Sales Scheme (OMSS) of Food Corporation of India, there are no takers for its offer of wheat. Roller flour millers, from southern India, are believed to have imported around 1.5m tonnes of wheat. This at a time when the country has harvested wheat crop of 72-73m tonnes. It results in the continuation of wheat glutting in market. FCI held around 20.4m tonnes of wheat as of October 1,1999 under the central against the buffer stock requirement of 11.6m tonnes. Rumors are doing the rounds of the markets that the government is proposing imposition on import on wheat to check unnecessary imports. FCI has restructured OMSS, allowing roller flour millers to pick up quantities as small as 10 tonnes; however, the response continues to be poor. FCI has given preference to offloading 30 per cent of category C and D wheat while issuing the wheat under OMSS. It is reported that If we cannot procure wheat from FCI at a competitive price, we have to look at other options such as imports. Any import duty will add to our costs. |
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