New Delhi, November 18: India, a traditional rice exporter, will import the grain for the first time in 20 years to meet a projected shortfall of the crop hit by drought and floods, government said today.
“We started rice season that is from October 2009 with almost six million tonnes of surplus… Still there is a projection that there is some shortfall of Kharif crops. So to make it up, we have to make some imports,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said just two days ahead of the ministerial meeting to review foodgrain stocks and prices.
Mukherjee, who heads the Empowered Group of Ministers on foodgrains, however, did not reveal the quantum and the timing of imports.
“Exactly what quantum and at what time, I can’t say,” he said on the sidelines of a Union Bank of India function here.
–Agencies