Moreover, competition from Thailand, a producer of high quality rice, was also making things very difficult for the Indian exporters. Speaking to The Financial Express, managing director of Emmsons International Ltd Anil Monga said that traditionally several international buyers were placing orders for Indian rice, which is inferior to Thai rice only because of the price difference. However,with the continuous increase in MSP of paddy was bridging the difference.

"Another 5 per cent increase in the MSP will make Thai rice cheaper than Indian rice. Since its quality is superior it is natural that we will lose out markets to Thailand," said Monga.

Although it is important to give farmers fair price for their produce, exporters say that their interests should also not be neglected. They argue that they should be given some sort of an incentive so that they could sell their product at competitive prices. Other than high support price, the second major impediment according to exporters, is all pervasive red-tapism. Monga said that despite liberalisation of the economy some States had yet to get rid of licence regime.

"We have to spend our time as well as manpower to procure licences for our purchases. In the process, we have to tackle numerous inspectors and face all the hassles which are characteristic of licence-raj".

Besides, exporters have to file returns every 15 days if they happen tomake purchases from a state. "Even if the exporter does not do any business with the state after the first time, returns have still to be filed," Monga said.

This leads to unnecessary pressures on exporters. Another problem faced by exporters is the compulsory sale of a percentage of total turnover as levy rice to the government at subsidised prices. Exporters arguement is that when the government has a large amount of buffer stock and in certain cases rice is rotting in godowns there was no logic behind putting so many restrictions on exporters.

The All India Rice Exporter's Association has several times taken up the issues with the government, but nothing has yet been done to solve the problems. An absence of a quality control mechanism is also hampering export growth. Because of several cases of supply of inferior quality of rice to buyers, a number of countries are now avoiding business with India. Indonesia has gone to the extent of formally blacklisting the country. Despite odds, a few Indiancompanies have actually managed to increase business solely due to their ``own efforts''.

According to Monga of Emmsons International, he has increased exports by venturing into new markets.

"We have made forays into the South African and West African markets and have recently opened an office in Durban." However, despite individual efforts, exporters say that they will not be able to stick in the international market for long if the government doesn't wake up and take notice of their predicament.