According to food ministry data the country has food grains reserve of 47 million tonnes, enough to meet requirement of public distribution system for the next 13 months.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukerhjee today said drought situation is not as alarming as it initially appeared because the recent rainfall has improved the farm sector prospects.
"Thanks to late monsoon, the problem (of drought) is not as alarming as it was visualised in the month of July and early part of August," he said at the India Today Conclave here. With huge stocks of wheat and rice, Mukherjee said, the country was in a better position to deal with drought and likely shortfall in foodgrain output on account of drought.
"Despite this drought, why we felt little confident was because of huge buffer stock which we were having in respect of foodgrain," Mukherjee said, adding the country's wheat and rice stocks are far in excess of buffer norms.
According to food ministry data the country has food grains reserve of 47 million tonnes, enough to meet requirement of public distribution system for the next 13 months.
Mukherjee said the country will have surplus in wheat and rice. He said there will be a surplus of 17.7 million tonnes of wheat in the marketing season for the foodgrain (April-June, 2010).
"Even if, I exclude 4 million tonnes buffer stocks and three million tonnes of strategic reserves, then also we will be left with a surplus of 10.7 million tonnes on April 1, 2010," he said. Also, the country will have surplus rice of around 14 million tonnes in the season which starts from the next month.
"If, I exclude 5.2 million tonnes of buffer stocks and 2 million tonnes of strategic reserves, then also there would be around 7 million tonnes surplus," he said.
Mukherjee said he has taken a risk of increasing outlays, which would raise fiscal deficit to estimated 6.8 per cent of GDP this fiscal, but he did not have any other alternative at the time of global financial crisis.
"In that scenario (of economic slowdown), the only alternative to my mind was... to step up the developmental out lays by ...37 per cent from Rs 2.43 lakh crore to Rs 3.25 lakh crore to meet the objective of generating demand in the rural sector," he said.
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