RAJYA SABHA
The stock of rice
and wheat in the central pool as on October 31, 2002 was 205.09
lakh tonnes and 330.59 lakh tonnes respectively.
A quantity of 35.10
lakh tonnes of wheat and 14.20 lakh tonnes of paddy was lying
is covered and plinth (CAP) as on October 31, 2002. Only wheat
and paddy (not rice) are stored in CAP.
The Government has
taken the following steps to dispose of the excess stock of foodgrains:
The scale of issue
for APL, BPL and Antyodaya households has been increased to 35
from 25 kg. per household per month; implementation of the Antyodaya
Anna Yojana in all States; the scale of issue for all welfare
institutions and hostels has been fixed uniformly @ 15 kg. per
month. An additional allocation equal to 5% of the BPL allocation
of States/UTs on this account has been made for the year 2002-2003
at BPL CIP; implementation of the Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojana
(SGRY) and issue of foodgrains under the Special Component of
SGRY to States affected by natural calamities; to increase export
of wheat and rice including luster lost wheat, provide WTO compatible
subsidies for exports of wheat, wheat products and rice and quantitative
restrictions on the export of rice, wheat and wheat products have
been removed, subject to the condition that the stocks in the
central pool will not be lower than the buffer stock of 243 lakh
MTs (100 lakh MTs of rice and 143 lakh MTs of wheat) at any point
of time.
This information
was given in Rajya Sabha today by Shri U. V. Krishnam Raju, Minister
of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, in
reply to a question of Shri Sukhdev Singh Libra and Dr. Abrar
Ahmed.
