No complaints on futures market manipulation: Official

Kochi, Oct 6 (UNI) Refuting the Left parties' charge that futures trading in agricultural commoditied has led to a hike in the prices of essential commodities, Union Consumer Affairs Secretary L Mansingh has said no specific instance of cartels or market manipulation had come to the government's notice.

Addressing a press conference here last night, Mr Mansingh said the Forwards Market Commission (FMC) was keeping a close watch on the situation.

No specific complaint had been made either to the commodities exchange authorities or to the government about market or price manipulation. Only some general complaints had come from traders but these were not substantiated, he said.

Stating all commodities exchanges were state-of-the-art, Mr Mansingh said the transactions were monitored on-line by the FMC.

The Commission was in the process of getting a special software to alert the regulator about any manipulation, he added.

''Our experience has been that forward trading has brought down volatility of prices and kept the market stable,'' he added.

Referring to the recent increase in the prices of wheat, sugar and pulses such as 'urad', 'moong' and 'channa', Mr Mansingh said an analysis showed the price rise was caused by other reasons.

While in the case of wheat it was because market arrivals were much less this season, the increase in prices of pulses was due to Pakistan entering the market as a buyer at the same time as India, to purchase pulses from Myanmar, which was the main source of pulses for India.

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