PUNE: Flour millers have asked the government to scrap the 25% import duty on wheat from April due to worries over a fall in output in 2016-17. The demand has come at a time when global exporters are eyeing India as a possible bulk buyer and flour millers want to plan wheat imports before the world market reacts to the country’s grain requirement.
The Union government had increased the import duty on wheat to 25% from 10% last fiscal as it wanted to prevent imports and liquidate its own stocks.
The industry expects a shortfall of 10 million tonnes in the next fiscal due to fall in acreage caused by the drought conditions and high temperatures, which are not suitable for wheat crop. Millers require high protein wheat for flour used for quick service restaurants and bread manufacturers.
“Apart from the decline expected in wheat production, the estimated requirement of 61.2 million tonnes of wheat under National Food Security Act (NFSA) indicates a larger procurement target for the central pool, leaving considerably smaller market surplus for the industry to source its milling requirement,” the Roller Flour Millers’ Federation of India (RFMFI) said in a letter addressed to the ministries of food and commerce.
