NEW DELHI (Commodity Online) : India’s Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar Thursday said prices of essential commodities, including sugar, were coming down.

Speaking here after inaugurating the National Conference for Kharif Campaign, which is aimed at improving productivity during the upcoming sowing season, he said, ‘The situation is definitely changing and it is a good sign”.



Pawar again ruled out exports of surplus wheat and said this will be allocated to the APL (above poverty line) families in the country.

He said he had planned to take up the issue at the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Admitting there was inadequate storage capacity, he said this was a big problem. The minister also asked the state governments to improve the data collection system on crop conditions.

He said the prices of the sugar shot up because the states provided insufficient data to the centre on sugarcane production.

Now the states, following the instruction given by the agriculture ministry, had done a realistic assessment of production, showing it to be very high, Pawar said.

‘The international market has also realised that India’s sugarcane production is improving. So, international prices of sugar are coming down,’ he added.

The minister asked the state governments to strengthen the public distribution system to contain the price rise.

Driven by increasing food prices, India’s annual rate of inflation, based on the wholesale price index, rose to 9.89 percent in February from 8.56 percent the previous month.

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