BackFood Ministry claims inflation will start falling soon
Food Ministry claims inflation will start falling soon
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New Delhi: The measures taken by the government to rein in prices of essential commodities will start showing results and inflation will start coming down soon, a senior food ministry official said on 1May 2007.
Ruling out any crisis in wheat availability in the wake of the decision to import one million tonnes of the foodgrain, the official said though food ministry has asked the State Trading Corporation to gear up for three million tonnes of wheat, if required, more imports were unlikely at this point in time.
“We do not want the price line of the wheat growers to be affected due to additional imports as such moves would put them in a disadvantageous position," the official said.
Prices of wheat, rice and sugar were stable and measures taken by the government will “start showing the base affect shortly" and their prices will decline, he said.
On pulses, the official said prices would also stabilise following the decision to permit duty free import of 1.5 million tonnes of the commodity.
1.8 million tonnes of pulses (both by government and private traders) have already been imported during 2006-07, he said.
India is facing an estimated shortfall of 3.61 million tonnes of pulses. As per the third advance estimates for 2006-07, pulses production is likely to increase by 5.3% at 14.10 million tonnes against the projected consumption of 17.71 million tonnes.
The official also claimed that prices of fruits and vegetables have declined recently, although their weightage on the inflation computation basket is less.
The wholesale prices of vegetables, which shot up by over 23% during the first week of April, has since declined by 5% in the second week of the month.
Inflation based on wholesale prices stood at 6.09% during the week ended April 14.
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