Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Thursday strongly defended the Centre?s decision to import wheat. He said it was in the larger interest of food security and claimed that the wrong policies of the previous NDA government led to wheat scarcity in the country, prompting the UPA government to import.
Pawar hit out at the BJP and said the campaign run by the Opposition was based on incorrect facts and the allegations levelled against him and the Centre were totally baseless, frivolous, malicious and misleading. The decision to scrap the first tender in March led to the saving of Rs 214.14 crore.
Pawar at a press conference said earlier the wheat stock position was good but the NDA government made available wheat for export to private traders at low prices, resulting a loss of Rs 16,245 crore by the government.
Coupled with this measure of the NDA regime, the unwillingness of BJP-led states to contribute to the central wheat procurement scheme also resulted in depletion of the domestic wheat stocks, he said. ?
On the other hand, states ruled by the BJP and its allies such as Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the non-Congress governments, including Uttar Pradesh, sought wheat and were given eighty two lakh tonne.