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Harish Damodaran

NEW DELHI, Oct. 29

EVEN as the Government expects the country's kharif (summer) rice output to plummet by a massive 16.8 per cent dip this year— from 79.36 million tonnes (mt) to 66.01 mt— early trends in grain procurement and arrivals in northern mandis suggest that the extent of decline may not as high as is being projected.

According to latest available information, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and State Government agencies had procured 70.69 lakh tonnes (lt) of rice equivalent during the current 2002-03 marketing season (October-September) till October 28, which is actually marginally higher than the 70.24 lt purchased during the corresponding period of the previous season.

While the agencies have so far bought 61.97 lt of rice from Punjab (against 61.05 lt during this period last year), progressive rice procurement in Haryana, at 8.56 lt, was only slightly below last year's corresponding level of 9.13 lt.

In other words, the severe soil moisture stress stemming from scanty monsoon rainfall has not had any serious impact on crop production, at least in the paddy growing areas of the North, where assured irrigation facilities exist.

Further, it is not the case that the higher procurement by official agencies has been due to the Centre announcing a Rs 20 per quintal additional `drought bonus'.

The fact that the crop has not suffered any real damage is borne out from the overall high market arrivals. So far, 10.58 lt of paddy have arrived in the mandis of Punjab (compared to 10.32 lt last year), with the corresponding figures for Haryana being 1.91 lt (2.21 lt).

What this shows is that although farmers there may have incurred huge extra costs for running their diesel pumps to extract groundwater and make up for inadequate rains, they have all the same managed to salvage the crop.

Of course, it is still premature to draw conclusions based on trends in Punjab and Haryana, which together account for less than 15 per cent of the country's total rice output. Roughly 42 per cent of India's rice is produced by three States — West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh — with Tamil Nadu and Bihar being the other major contributors.

While West Bengal and Bihar are slated to generate good harvests this year — the monsoon's performance has been satisfactory in these two States — the situation is said to be not so good in UP, AP and Tamil Nadu. But considering that AP and Tamil Nadu — for that matter, West Bengal too — raise more than one paddy crop annually, one could hope that the setback caused by the poor kharif harvest is temporary.

All this is good news for rice exporters, in particular. As on October 1, 2002, rice stocks in the Central pool stood at 15.77 mt, compared to 21.45 mt a year ago.

The lower level of inventories, coupled with the anticipated sharp dip in this year's harvest, was expected to force the Centre to clamp down on exports at some point. But now, there seems room for cautious optimism.

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