New Delhi, Sept. 24 The Centre plans to extend duty-free imports of white/refined sugar beyond November.
“We will extend it ( beyond the existing end-November deadline). I am not sure (about the period of extension), but probably till May or June 2010,” the Union Food and Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, told presspersons on the sidelines of the Conference for Rabi Campaign here on Thursday.
Earlier, inaugurating the two-day conference, Mr Pawar said that the deficient and erratic south-west monsoon rains had led to an unsown area of nearly six million hectares in paddy and another 1.2 million hectares in case of kharif oilseeds.
“A shortfall of 6 million hectare in sowing of paddy is bound to have an adverse impact on production and consequently on availability of rice. The exact figures will emerge later but without waiting for the production figures, it is important for us to plan and take compensatory steps to make good the production losses of kharif crops in the rabi season,” the Minister pointed out.
Mr Pawar was hopeful that the residual moisture resulting from late monsoon rains would help significantly raise area under wheat, chickpea, mustard and rabi jowar.
Source : Business Line