"I do not think there is any proposal to relax anything now. If anything, we will see after the rice crop is available," Pillai said when asked if the government was considering lifting the ban on export of non-basmati rice. As part of measures to control inflation, which has now touched 8.75 per cent, the government had banned export of non-basmati rice. India has received requests from several African countries to allow shipment of the grain to meet their domestic requirements.
"If we have a production of 94 million tonnes (mt), we may have 3-4 mt of surplus rice which will then be available for exports," he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
According to the third advance estimates, rice production is estimated at 95.68 mt in the 2007-08 crop year.
Pillai noted that India's stock position was comfortable in the case of wheat as the government had procured record foodgrain for its buffer stock.
"We are quite comfortable on the wheat front. The harvest has been good. If the rice harvest in the coming November is good, we will be quite comfortable both in rice and wheat," he said.
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Pillai also ruled out any import of wheat this year. India had imported 7.3 million tonnes of wheat during the last two years.
When asked about putting restrictions on maize exports, he said, "There is no move to ban exports. There was some proposal to whether this should be considered. But that now requires more detailed examinations by the Department of Consumer Affairs."