| Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other state-firms bought 3.1 million tonnes of wheat from farmers since April 1 and total purchases may reach a target of 15 million tons, Food Corp. |
| Chairman Alok Sinha said in a phone interview from New Delhi on Thursday. The firms bought 89 percent of the grain marketed during the same period, compared with 71 per cent a year ago, he said. |
| Higher wheat stockpiles may reduce pressure on India's government to import the grain at prices which reached a record in February and rein in inflation fueled by the rising cost of staple foods. Inflation rose 7.14 per cent in the week ended April 5. |
| "India will have comfortable wheat stocks this year," Sinha said. "Increased prices for farmers and the absence of private traders from the market have helped higher procurement." |
| The government, which buys food grains at guaranteed prices from farmers for distribution to the poor at subsidised rates, increased the assured price for wheat 18 per cent to Rs 10,000 a tonne this year. Wheat, harvested in March and April, accounts for 73 per cent of India's winter food grain output. |
| Raw sugar sop scrapped India, the world's second-biggest sugar producer, scrapped a facility allowing duty-free raw sugar imports against exports at a later date as local stockpiles increased because of higher production. |
| The concession on imports of raw sugar against the so-called advance license will be withdrawn with immediate effect, the directorate general of foreign trade said in a notification on its website yesterday. |
| Users of raw sugar as an ingredient for products can continue to import the commodity at zero duty if it isn't sold in the local market, the notification said. |
| Indian sugar mills bought more than 2 million metric tons of raw sugar in 2004 and 2005 under the advance licence system. |
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