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Speaking to reporters in the sidelines of International Conference on Science, Technology and Public Policy to achieve Zero Hunger Challenge, organised by M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai, she said, "We have just started working on it. The quantum of sugar annually getting accumulated in the last four years has been quite substantial. Unless that is evacuated, you are not going to get the price for the farmers. The situation is so much critical."
Adding on the plans for a barter trade, she said, "It is very much at the early stage. It is not as if we have already come up with a solution. Through the Ministry of External Affairs, we are trying to talk with different governments where pulses are being imported from - some African countries, Myanmar, Canada and many other countries also - where there is a possibility of getting pulses into India and who would want to take our sugar."
She added that this is one of the idea which the government is working, while there are also other ideas for evacuating the buffer sugar. Her Ministry is seeking the help of Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Agriculture, is working on it.
According to recent agency report, the government is looking at a proposal to allow four million tonne of sugar through barter trade.
The past four years have witnessed continued overproduction of sugar as compared to domestic requirements which has depressed sugar prices and consequently the mills have been constrained for liquidity and are facing difficulties in clearing cane dues owed to the farmers. This has affected the incomes of 50 million sugar cane farmers, said a release by the Government of India in April, this year.
As on July 2015, cane price dues of Rs 17,301 crore of sugarcane growers are outstanding against the sugar mills, informed Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha last week.
The added that the central government is working with the State government of Kerala to solve the issues in the rubber industry in the State. She said that on the one side the government is promoting growing of rubber in nontraditional areas in north east and other parts of the country, the quality of rubber available in India is superior and the tyre industry is not using Indian rubber since it require only lower quality rubber.
She added that the stand of Government of India in the discussions in food security is to ensure that there is a control over the essential public distribution system and there has to be an international environment through which a certain sense of co-operation prevails rather than hard competitiveness, because food grains cannot be just driven only by the politics of the market.
Later, refuting to the allegation that the main agenda for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Chennai was to meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) Chief J Jayalalithaa for political reasons, she said that Tamil Nadu is known for its handloom heritage and the Prime Minister visited Chennai to inaugurate an important national event in Chennai.
