March 4, 2002
'39' WHEAT EXPORT CROSSES 50 LAKH TONNESA quantity of 51.87 lakh tonnes of wheat was made available by Food Corporation of India for export since November 2000; of which 50.25 lakh tonnes has been lifted as on March 1, 2002. With this, India has been ranked as the seventh country in wheat exports with a foreign exchange earning of Rs. 4,000 crore. The other major wheat exporting countries are Argentina, Australia, Canada, European Countries, USA and Hungary. The FCI has also made available 16.46 lakh tonnes of rice for export purposes during the period from April 2001 to February this year.
The central pool has a stock of 563.35 lakh tonnes of foodgrains as on February 1, 2002 comprising 261.34 lakh tonnes of rice and 302.01 lakh tonnes of wheat. The offtake of wheat and rice from the central pool during the first ten months of the current financial year, 2001-02, was 230.25 lakh tonnes as against 136.83 lakh tonnes during the corresponding period of the last financial year, i.e., 2000-01, registering an increase of 68.27 per cent.
In January, 2002 the lifting under TPDS was 11.99 lakh tonnes out of a total allocation of 24.6 lakh tonnes. Under other schemes 24.54 lakh tonnes of foodgrains was also lifted during this period.