January 17, 2011

India plans to release more grains to bulk buyers

India looks at freeing up more grains for bulk consumers to improve supplies amid huge stockpiles, Food Secretary Bhushan Chander Gupta said Friday (Jan 14).

Asia's third-largest economy, which is battling inflation mainly stoked by high vegetable and dairy product prices, is sitting on huge stocks of grains, which has been freed up from time to time for bulk consumers and subsidised sale to the poor.

India's food price index rose an annual 16.91% at the start of January, data on Thursday (Jan 13) showed.

This month, the federal government released 1.5 million tonnes of wheat for bulk consumers like flour millers and biscuit markers.

"We have enough of stocks and we are open to allocate more to bulk consumers," Gupta said.

On January 1, India's grains stocks stood at 47.1 million tonnes against a target of 20 million tonnes, at a time when worst floods in decades shut down a key grains port in Australia and the US signalled further tightening of domestic and global supplies amid record high food prices.

On Thursday (Jan 13), India's embattled coalition government failed to announce major policy decisions to tackle soaring food prices after days of wrangling, taking only minor measures seen as unlikely to make a major impact.