Food imports rise as Modi struggles to revive rural India

February 2, 2016

New Delhi, Feb 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a late night meeting with food and farm officials last week to address falling agricultural output and rising prices, and traders warn the country will soon be a net buyer of some key COMMODITIES for the first time in years.

india Back-to-back droughts, the lack of long-term INVESTMENT in agriculture and increasing demands from a growing population are undermining the country's bid to be self-sufficient in food.

That is creating opportunities for foreign suppliers in generally weak commodity MARKETS , but is a headache for Modi, who needs the farm sector to pick up in order to spur economic growth and keep his political ambitions on track.

"The top brass is dead serious about the farm sector that is so crucial to our overall economic growth and well-being," said a source who was present at the recent gathering of Modi, his agriculture and food ministers and other officials.

Modi sat through presentations and asked the ministers to ensure steady supplies and stable prices, urging them to find solutions, the source said. Modi did not suggest any immediate interventions of his own.

The long term impact on commodity markets could be significant.

Last month, India made its first purchases of corn in 16 years. It has also been increasing purchases of other products, such as lentils and oilmeals, as production falls short.

Wheat and sugar stocks, while sufficient in warehouses now, are depleting fast, leading some TRADERS to predict the need for imports next year.

"There's a complete collapse of Indian agriculture, and that's because of the callous neglect by the government," said Devinder Sharma, an independent food andTRADE policy analyst.

"Given the state of agriculture, I'm not surprised to see India emerging as an importer of a number of food items. Maize is just the beginning."

Growing distress

Agriculture contributes nearly 13 percent to India's $2 trillion economy and employs about two-thirds of its 1.25 billion people.

Government sources said that boosting irrigation, raising crop yields and encouraging farmers to avail of a new crop insurance scheme unveiled in January will help address growing distress in the countryside caused by poor harvests.

Modi has already loosened controls on some imports.

But one of his biggest dilemmas is that although imports can help cool prices - a key concern for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's core middle-class voter base - farmers see them as benefiting foreign producers at the cost of locals.

In a recent interview with television channel ET Now, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government was aware of the impact two bad monsoons have had.

"That now tells me, please spend more on irrigation," he said.

The farm sector needs to grow at about 3 percent to help Jaitley achieve his target of 7 to 7.5 percent economic growth in the 2015/16 fiscal year.

In the first half of this fiscal year, agricultural growth fell to 2 percent from 2.4 percent a year earlier.

Who are the winners?

India's entry into the MARKET as a net importer is good news for suppliers like Brazil, Argentina, the United States and Canada, which are suffering from a global commodity glut.

India's move to import corn, for example, has supported global prices. Corn values rose 2.6 percent after India said on Jan. 13 that it would launch a second tender for 200,000 tonnes, its second since announcing plans to buy half a million tonnes.

Traders say India may need to import another 1.5-2.0 million tonnes.

The next big import item on the list could be oilmeals, an animal feed, which India used to export in large quantities until last year.

"Very soon we'll be left with no choice but to import oilmeals, largely because our oilseed production has failed to keep pace with our demand for both vegetable oils and oilmeals," said B.V. Mehta, head of TRADE body Solvent Extractors' Association.@Body.

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Car sales dipped 8% in Jan 2020 in India compared to Jan 2019: SIAM

Agencies

February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11: Cheaper lending rates in the country along with the government's booster via tax cuts seem to have had little effect on vehicle sales in January, with car sales decreasing by over 14,531 units, or slightly over 8 per cent, compared to January last year.

According to Rajan Wadhera, President of industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), which gives out the auto sales numbers, the overall slump in vehicle sales in India was due to the "rising cost of vehicle ownership and slower growth in GDP".

Barring three-wheelers, all other segments showed de-growth.

Vehicle sales across segments have been declining for over a year now. SIAM sales data last month compared with that of January 2019 showed that domestic passenger vehicle sales slipped 6.2 per cent to 262,714 units. The decline in car sales stood at 8.1 per cent, and two-wheelers 16.06 per cent.

Sales of commercial vehicles, an indicator of industrial health in the economy, slipped by 14.04 per cent to 75,289 units last month, while the vehicle sales across categories registered a de-growth of 13.83 per cent to 17,39,975 units from 20,19,253 units in January 2019, SIAM said.

However, Wadhera said, they were hopeful that recent government announcements on infrastructure and rural economy would support growth of vehicle sales, especially in the commercial and two-wheeler segments.

"We are looking forward to the early announcement of an incentive-based scrappage policy in the context of the recent assurances by the government," Wadhera said.

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After drawing flak, Yogi takes U-turn: gives up on permission issue for migrants

Agencies

May 27,2020

Lucknow, May 27: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has taken a U-turn, two days after he declared that permission would be needed if other states employ workers from UP.

The issue sparked a major controversy and an official spokesman has now said that the government would not include this clause of 'prior permission' in the bye-laws of the Migration Commission.

The government spokesman also said it was working on modalities to set up the commission to provide jobs and social security to migrant workers returning to the state. It has named the migration commission as the "Shramik Kalyan Aayog (Workers welfare commission).

About 26 lakh migrants have already returned to the state and an exercise to map their skills is being carried out to help them get jobs.

Yogi Adityanath has discussed the modalities for setting up the commission and told his officers to complete the skill mapping exercise in 15 days.

A senior official of Team 11, said, "The chief minister discussed the modalities for setting up the commission, as well. There will be no provision requiring other states to seek UP government's prior permission for employing our manpower. The commission is being set up to provide jobs and social security to the workers. We will also link the migrants to the government schemes to provide them houses and loans etc."

Yogi Adityanath said a letter should be sent to all state governments to find out about migrant workers wanting to come back to Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier, the chief minister, while speaking at a webinar on Sunday, had said, "The migration commission will work in the interest of migrant workers. If any other state wants UP's manpower, they cannot take them just like that, but will have to seek permission of the UP government. The way our migrant workers were ill-treated in other states, the UP government will take their insurance, social security in its hands now. The state government will stand by them wherever they work, whether in Uttar Pradesh, other states or other countries."

The statement had sparked a row with some political leaders and parties questioning the move.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi sharply criticized Adityanath's stand, saying the workers were not the chief minister's personal property.

"It is very unfortunate that the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh views India in such a way. These people are not his personal property. They are not the personal property of Uttar Pradesh. These people are Indian citizens and they have the right to decide what they want to do and they have the right to live the life they want to live," he had said.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray had also taken on Adityanath and said that if UP insists on "permission" before other states can employ workers from there, "then any migrant entering Maharashtra would need to take permissions from us, from the Maharashtra state, our police force too."

Meanwhile, the government spokesman said, "The chief minister is deeply moved by the condition of migrants. They have been treated badly by other states. So, when the chief minister spoke about the need for seeking UP government's permission, he did so as a guardian for workers. It's only his concern for the migrants that came out as a political statement."

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