Abhijit Sen blames colleagues for report delay

Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, who heads a panel on studying the impact of futures trading on commodity prices, today said the unavailability of other members of the panel was causing delay in submitting its report to the government.

However, Sen said he expected the report next month. "We will be ready with our report by middle of October," he said here without divulging anything related to findings.

"Members of this committee are unavailable. One member is out of the country... Another is busy somewhere else and in such a situation, how can the report be ready," Sen rued.

Sen was here to take part in a workshop on 'Comprehensive District Agricultural Plan'. Other members of this panel include Rajya Sabha member Sharad Joshi, Forward Markets Commission member Kewal Ram, Prakash Apte of IIM-Bangalore and Siddharth Sinha of IIM-Ahmedabad.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had announced the formation of the committee to study whether forward trading in essential commodities has a direct impact on their prices.

The government had banned futures trading in wheat and rice in February this year following protests by various political parties on the ground that such trading was pushing up prices.

Commodity market regulator FMC had also banned trading in tur and urad in January this year. The committee was supposed to submit its report within two months but has already been given two extensions.