‘No plans to ban futures trading on more goods’

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While ruling out any further extension of the futures trading suspension in soya oil, chana, potato and rubber beyond four months, Union agriculture and consumer affairs minister Sharad Pawar on Monday said the government was not planning to include more agriculture commodities under futures trading ban in the near future.

The government had recently announced suspension of futures trading of four commodities till September 6 for controlling the rising inflation. It has already banned futures trading of wheat, rice, tur and urad in 2007. Pawar also said that of the four commodities in which futures trading ban was imposed last year, the prices of two items have stabilised while rates of other two commodities have increased.

“There are two items where prices have stabilized while the other two items whose prices have gone up irrespective of their delisting," he said while refusing to identify the commodities. On the recommendation of the Abhijit Sen committee to expand futures trading, Pawar said the ministry was yet to discuss the Sen committee report in details.

After inaugurating the Fruit and Vegetable summit, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry, Pawar said the decision to suspend futures trading was taken by the commodity market regulator Forward Markets Commission (FMC) after much deliberation. “I do not think new commodities will be added to futures trade ban in the near future,” Pawar said.

On the record procurement of wheat exceeding the target, Pawar said the wheat procurement was expected to exceed more than 20 million tonne, against the target of 15 million. State-owned agencies like Food Corporation of India and other agencies procure wheat for maintaining buffer stock and for circulation through Public Distribution System.

According to the ministry of agriculture, the wheat procurement was to the tune of 18.5 million tonne on Saturday. Pawar said procuring agencies would continue to procure wheat till May 15 in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The procurement from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh would continue till June 15.

Stocks of wheat accumulated during the current rabi season have drastically improved due to a bumper crop and procurement from non-traditional states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. India imported 5.5 million tonnes of wheat in 2006 to augment the buffer stock and PDS as procurement fell to 9.2 million tonne.