New Delhi. India is a supplier in global rice trade for the last two decades. The export of rice from India has ranged between 5 lakh to 60 lakh tonne per year in the last 2 decades. Despite failure of monsoon there was no proposal to import rice till date.

For the current year, Government has assessed the stock position of rice and decided that import of rice for Central Pool is not required at this stage. However, if trend of procurement shows shortfall, the Government may, at an appropriate time, decide to consider import of rice to ensure availability of rice in the domestic market at affordable price. All the options are open regarding import of rice subject to domestic availability, process and consumption.

There has been a record procurement of 226.89 lakh tones and 253.82 lakh tones of wheat in Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) 2008-09 and 2009-10 respectively. Similarly, record procurement of 287.36 and 336.84 lakh tones of rice have been made during Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2007-08 and 2008-09 respectively. With the increase in procurement of wheat and rice in last two Kharif Marketing Season/Rabi Marketing Season (KMS/RMS) and an estimated procurement of 262 lakh tones of rice in current KMS 2009-10, the stocks of rice and wheat in the Central Pool are sufficient to meet the requirement of Targeted Public Distribution Systems (TPDS) and other Welfare Schemes at current level of allocation.

This reply was given by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri K.V. Thomas in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.