Commerce Ministry nixes imported pulses for ration shops

NEW DELHI: The food ministry's plan to depend on imported pulses for supplying to ration shops to plug domestic shortage has been nixed by the commerce ministry. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma has written a letter to food minister KV Thomas saying that the three public sector units - STC, MMTC and PEC - are reluctant to import pulses since losses incurred by them on past imports have not been reimbursed.

The PSUs have suffered a loss of Rs 652 while importing pulses for the government for general supply as well as supplying subsidised pulses through ration shops. "As a policy support to PSUs for undertaking the imports, the government was reimbursing losses up to 15 per cent.... The projection for pulses production this year is lower due to less than normal monsoons and this is likely to necessitate import of pulses by the PSUs," the letter says. The letter is an offshoot of the food ministry's plan to revive the scheme of selling pulses at subsidy of Rs 20 per kg through ration shops which was terminated in June where the subsidy was Rs 10 per kg.

The scheme, which was launched in 2008, has also drawn flak from Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) last year, which in its report had indicated that pulses importing agencies suffered losses of Rs 1,201 crore on import and sale of pulses without succeeding in price stabilisation in the market. "In the absence of any specific guidelines, all the designated importing agencies sold the imported pulses in the open market through the tendering process, instead of distributing through state agencies," the CAG report had said.

The commerce minister has also asked the food minister to seek necessary approvals from the cabinet for authorising the PSUs to import pulses on an assessment of demand-supply gap as well as policy support so as to compensate the PSUs from possible losses on such imports during 2012-13. He has also suggested the food minister to seek necessary approvals for importing edible oil for ration shops.