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NEW DELHI, May 29

EVEN as the country sits on a massive pile-up of foreign exchange reserves amounting to $79 billion giving enough elbow-room for a cosy import cover, the Ministry of Commerce is still maintaining its "war room" vigilance clamped immediately after India lifted the quantitative restrictions (QRs) two years ago to monitor import surge which would have adverse fallout on domestic industry.

The latest announcement in this regard by the Commerce Ministry shows that the total import of 300 sensitive tariff lines in the fiscal year 2002-03, a year after the QRs were totally removed, registered a growth of 20.8 per cent. Thus, the import of 300 sensitive tariff lines during 2002-03 amounted to Rs 13,235.67 crore, against Rs 10,955.76 crore in 2001-02.

Lest this double-digit import growth of sensitive tariff lines would draw the ire of political parties in the opposite camp, the Commerce Ministry press release maintains that "the major item that has contributed significantly to the growth is the edible oil segment, mainly crude palm oil and its fractions." Thus import of edible oil (with 27 tariff lines) amounted to Rs 8,457.62 crore in the last fiscal, against Rs 6,475.94 crore in 2001-02. Again, the Ministry hastens to explain that the "significant feature of edible oil import is that while import of crude palm oil has gone up, that of refined palm oil has gone down, leading to better utilisation of the processing capacity in the country. Import of sunflower oil, both crude and refined, has gone down."

While the increase in the import of edible oil is pronounced, it is not as if it alone pushed the growth of import of sensitive items because out of the 300 sensitive tariff lines, in as much as in 261 tariff lines comprising milk and milk products, fruits and vegetables, automobiles, products of concern to small-scale industry such as umbrella, locks, toys, writing instruments, tiles, glassware.

And others there were marked increases in import. Thus in the case of fruits and vegetables with 48 tariff lines, imports had gone up from Rs 928.50 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 1,709.94 crore, and in automobiles with 32 tariff lines, the imports had gone up from Rs 86.95 crore to Rs 321.52 crore between these two periods.

Import of products of SSI concern (with tariff lines 20) went up from Rs 103.92 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 135.26 crore in 2002-03 and milk and milk products imports (with tariff lines 22) doubled from Rs 21.56 crore to Rs 44.22 crore during the period under review. Even items categorised as

"Other" with tariff lines numbering the maximum at 112, there has been an increase in import value from Rs 561.30 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 590.05 crore in 2002-03.

Independent economists to whom Business Line spoke said that when the country boasts about a hefty forex reserves touching $80 billion, there is no point in glossing over factual information by periodically putting out pertaining to sensitive imported items because it is the consumer choice and demand that drive import growth rather than anything else.

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