BJP cautions against import of substandard wheat from US

New Delhi, June 12 (UNI) The BJP today accused the UPA government of getting into a hidden tie-up with the US to import large quantity of sub-standard wheat from that country.

Reminding the UPA particularly Congress of the import of wheat from US under PL 480 in the sixties, the party said along with wheat the country had also got weeds, Congress grass, which had ruined vast stretches of the country's cultivable land.

Talking to newspersons, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the US had always set high standards while buying anything from any country, but while selling "it forgets standards and often supplies sub-standard foodgrains and other material." He said India had earlier stopped import of foodgrains from the US because of poor quality. Now that the US had objected to India buying wheat and other things from Australia it was forcing India to buy American wheat.

"BJP is sure that importing wheat from the US would result in double loss. First that the commodity would be of poor quality and it would bring in weeding menace," he said.

Besides, it would also hit the farmers hard as they would not get good remuneration for the commodity, he said, adding that the UPA's wheat policy had been total flop.

While admitting that there had been decline in the wheat production that necessitated import of the grain, the BJP leader said that loss of produce was not as much as given out to be.

UNI