The Food Ministry has suggested imposition of 10% import duty on wheat in order to curb shipments and liquidate poor quality grains lying in FCI godowns. There is currently no import duty on wheat. The flour millers and private traders are importing wheat on lower global prices and lack of high-quality grains in the domestic markets.
Imports are happening despite bumper domestic wheat output in the 2014-15 crop year and surplus stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of foodgrains.
So far in the current marketing year that started from April the nodal agency has procured 27.6 million tonnes (MT) of wheat. Of 27.6 MT, 20-30 percent of the grain is of poor quality and that need to be disposed of soon. The corporation had to procure poor quality wheat as it relaxed norms for procurement of the grain this year to protect farmers, whose crop got damage due to hailstorms and unseasonal rains in February-April.