'India will not import more wheat this year'

New Delhi, Sept 2: India has no plans to buy more wheat from the international market as sufficient stocks would be available with the arrival of contracted shipment from abroad, said Agriculture and Food Minister Sharad Pawar here today.

"We do not plan to go in for more imports and thus no new tender would be floated", Mr Pawar said adding that five tenders, already finalised would augument the stocks by 55 lakh tonnes.

A shipment of 16.70 lakh tonnes of wheat arrived in the country last week.

Mr Pawar said with moonsoon being good in many parts, the next Rabi crop of wheat would be bumper. And, the contracted imports would be sufficient to meet the foodgrains requirement, he added.

However, the country's wheat stocks as on August 1 were assessed at 7.34 million tonnes, down from 12.9 million tonnes last year.

Mr Pawar said the country had a good crop of rice estimated at 95 million tonnes and had exported rice worth Rs 4000 crore. The wheat imports is likely to cost Rs 3000 crore to the country.

UNI