Centre Not Worried About Food Inflation; Sugar Exports Have To Wait.

Expressing confidence, food minister K V Thomas said the government was not worried about food inflation, which was showing a declining trend and might come down to 7% soon. “Food inflation now is 9.5%, which we presume may come down to 7% soon. So we are not worried about inflation. We feel that we will be able to control that,” the minister told reporters in New Delhi.

Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with Jerome Bonnafont, French Ambassador, Thomas said India was confident of containing food inflation as the availability of food grain in the country was comfortable. “We are trying to manage the supply-demand gap in pulses and edible oil,” he said.

On sugar, the minister said although India’s production was estimated to be higher this year, “we are not taking a hasty decision on allowing exports as the government’s priority is to protect the interest of consumers.”

“This year sugar production is good, but we have got internal market. We are more concerned with the domestic market. We will take the decision of export of sugar only after giving priority to maintaining price level within the country,” Thomas said.

The minister noted that although sugar prices were coming down in the domestic market, the government still needs to be “very cautions on exports.” The retail price of sugar has declined to Rs 32 a kg now from Rs 48 a kg in January in most parts of the country.

The country’s food inflation has come down to 9.52% for the week ended February 28, from 10.39% in the previous week. The minister said the situation of food inflation in the European countries was worse at present.

Thomas said the meeting with the French Ambassador was to discuss about the group meetings on agriculture and food prices, which were part of the forthcoming G-20 meeting to be held in June in Paris.

Source : fnbnews.com