Eow Starts Probe Into Rs 50Cr Sugar Export Scam

 The economic offences wing (EOW) of the city police has begun investigation into the alleged fraudulent export of two lakh tonnes of sugar by 21 sugar factories in the state. The fraud was initially estimated at around Rs 22 crore, but the police believe it may go up to Rs 50 crore.

Principally, sugar was exported in 2007-08 at rates lower than market prices, but the transport company was paid at rates higher than that prevalent at the time. Around 200 accused have been listed, including the chairmen, managing directors and directors of the 21 factories in Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Pune.


An advocate, Govind Patil, had filed the case with the police. "The modus operandi was that over two lakh tonnes of sugar were sold to Kenya, Tanzania and Sri Lanka at a much lower price than the market rate in India. Moreover, the transportation fees given to M/s Shakti Credit Limited were much higher than market rates. During our initial probe, we found that it was the transporter's firm that had brought the proposal of export and the remaining work was done with its help," said a police officer.


A Kolhapur resident, Vasant Apte, had filed a petition in the Bombay high court in 2008 seeking a probe. The HC directed the Sugar Committee to inquire. During its second inquiry, sugar commissioner Raj Gopal Deora found a loss of crores and the court ordered Mumbai police to probe. "After a preliminary inquiry, we registered a cheating case in August 2016 against the chairman, managing directors, directors and office bearers of M/s Shakti Credit. We have written to all the sugar factories to furnish records of all exports during 2007-08 and are waiting for their reply. We have also made an office bearer of the Maharashtra Sugar Federation an accused," added the officer.


The sleuths said they are trying to track how Shakti Credit got the tenders for the exports, mainly through JNPT, Kandla and Port Bundar ports. The role of some officers of the Indian Sugar Export-Import Pvt Ltd is under probe.

 

 

Sources ; timesofindia.indiatimes.com
 

India Needs Strategy For Dal Production; Here’S Why

There is by now substantial agreement amongst analysts that a strategy for dal production which ensures supplies and a reasonable degree of self-reliance is sorely needed, and the country cannot go from one crisis to another without a well-worked-out policy.

However, the discussion is flawed on its assessments of what governments can and cannot do and on the lack of a short and medium strategy to enhance production. Former CACP chairman Ashok Gulati has endorsed the proposal that government use a fund to stabilise prices. But India’s pulse problem is not contracyclical. Funds work if you have to support prices in one year and sell in another to replenish your fund. The pulses problem is of an endemic shortage which keeps on rising. You will need subsidies and not funds. Earlier imports where around 2 million tonnes; but now they are in the range of 3.5-4.5 million tones and we are running on a downstairs case, so more maybe ahead. Again, governments have been notoriously poor managers of contracyclical policies. My friend Sanat Mehta, who passed away recently, set up a committee under me to solve the groundnut oil problem in Saurashtra. I wanted a contracyclical fund. Shankar Lal Guru, then a prominent market regulator of the Unjha market-yard, told me, “When I trade in mungphali (groundnut), even my munim does not know whether I am buying or selling. But your minister announces his policies, and so we are able to fleece him.”

Second, they want imports. If your policies are as bad as they have been, you will need imports. Since imports are expensive, and particularly given we are poor importers, the need for subsidies for urban consumers is felt. But that will give very wrong signals to the country’s farmers. Incidentally, imports and subsidies will subsidise foreign farmers, in Canada, the US, Australia as also in East Africa and Myanmar. India’s own farmers will suffer. It is like pouring water into a leaking bucket. We will give negative signals before the next rabi season to our agriculturists. They already get the wrong signals, as Gulati points out, from the government’s support to wheat, and a partial import policy will make matters worse. It is of some importance that imports are made with a mild tariff and subsidised as they are even now.

No one is worried about the future. A committee I had chaired on pulses strategy, of which the report is printed, worked on a short- and medium-term strategy to enhance production; it also included a Bt pulses seeds strategy. The report is gathering dust, after some activity when Sharad Pawar was the Union agriculture minister.

Then, of course, our old friend, the Essential Commodities Act, is there. So, there are stocking limits. Not only for traders, but retailers, exporters, importers, implemented by a so-called reform-friendly, market-friendly regime. Some ‘show’ raids are done and the figures of pulses obtained are touted. Not a single grain of pulse has been added to the nations granaries, apart from those touted in the histrionics. If the past is any guide, and as many official reports have shown, such regulations are the major cause of black money. Also, may be, of corruption.

What is the government doing to enhance more production in the upcoming rabi season? Who is responsible for that, since the Planning Commission has been abolished? Unless perverted policies are followed, the price signals are there for the kisan. A seeds policy is essential, as also availability of pesticides, as Rallis has shown in its I Shakti producer companies, which come from a committee I chaired when Arun Jaitley was the minister of corporate affairs. What is happening to the 4 million kisans who have moved to census towns, thousands of them, each crying for market infrastructure; not the APMC structure, thank you? If the government were to support the kisan in what he does, it would never regret it. Can we assure him that the dal he produces will be purchased at 50% above the support price, way below the import price in terms of landed costs in the consuming centres? We supported him in 1975, 1988 and 2008 and he never let us down. Its time we got our act together again.

The author is chancellor, Central University of Gujarat and vice-chairman, Sardar Patel Institute of Economics & Social Research. He is also a former minister of power, planning, and science & technology.

 

Sources :.financialexpress.com

Early Drop In Mercury Turns Grapes Sour For Nashik Vineyard Owners

Nature continues to be unkind to the farmers of Maharashtra. After three successive years of hailstorms and drought, this year a good rainfall brought them some hope for their kharif crop

. But the parting kick of the retreating monsoon flooded their villages and farms and destroyed much of their produce. Now the unprecedented chill spreading across the state too early this season is fast destroying the hope of one section of farmers in Nashik—the grape growers.

Last week, grape producers from across the district had submitted a memorandum to Union roads and transport minister Nitin Gadkari to seek his intervention with the government and the Nashik District Central Co-operative Bank (NDCC) for extension of crop loans to one lakh farmers who had been left without funds at all. The NDCC has disbursed Rs 1740 crore worth of loans to farmers but fell short of funds following the government’s failure to make good the subsidy.

Nearly 75% of the grapes grown in Nashik, which is India’s grape county, finds its way to markets in Europe, making for about 60% of the total exports from India.

This is the month when farmers have to prune the vines to help the clusters to grow in proper proportion and without loans from the NDCC they do not have enough funds for these operations including for labour charges and pesticides. But while this man-made hurdle can be overcome, what is now worrying farmers majorly is the dipping mercury in the district which, on Monday was at 8.6 degree Celsius, the coldest after Ahmednagar at seven degrees Celcius.

Says Dinkarnath Aher, a farmer who has been in the business since 1985 with 25 acres of grape farms stretched across the Niphad tehsil, which is the main grape growing area in the country: “We cannot afford to have the temperature drop so suddenly. It damages the berries on the cluster which crack and this renders them useless for export. Moreover, if the temperature drops below eight degrees celsius, there is danger of powder mildew and other fungi taking over the crop which will lead to complete destruction of the produce which will not be fit for even the domestic market.”

Farmers at the moment are doing their best to save their crop by covering the vines in jute sacks and blankets, burning dead leaves beneath the vines to provide them warmth or using warm water to sprinkle the crop in the hope it will take away the chill. “But these are temporary remedial measures.”

The weather observatory has forecast further dips in temperature and that is worrying farmers about the future of their crops which will be ready to harvest in a month. But according to Jagannath Khapre, president of the Grape Exporters’ Association of India, the increasing frost in the air can cause injury to the berries and also slow down the metabolism of the vine. “The grape crop is generally harvested in 120 days. But the increasing cold slows down the metabolism and it can take about 160 days to harvest the crop, provided it has not been damaged by the chill.’’ Anything further than five degrees Celsius can condemn the entire crop to destruction, he adds.

Already the excess rainfall in some areas has left farmers with the prospect of less yields across the two lakh acres in the Banganga valley in Niphad tehsil which is all given over to the crop. Any further vagaries of weather would condemn them to virtually no yields at all, adds Aher.

Maharashtra is India’s largest grape producer and nearly 80% of the produce comes from Niphad in Nashik district though Pune and Solapur also grow some quantities of grape as does Bangalore in Karnataka. Normally such severe chill does not set in so early in the grape season and much of the clusters are fully grown before temperatures dip below 10 degrees Celsius. This year, however, the mercury has been falling steadily since Diwali. Farmers are left with little but to pray to the weather and sun god to save their crop.

 

Sources :hindustantimes.com

Demonetisation Impact: $1 Billion Worth Of Gold Imported So Far Since Nov 9

 A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes would cease to be legal tender from the midnight of November 8 – a move aimed at cracking down on the flow of black money – those in possession of unaccounted wealth were seen rushing to jewellers to buy gold.

While these people were willing to pay huge premiums, jewellers were ready to accept old currency notes. The transactions took place on past-dated bills; even VAT was paid. As a result of this rush, there was a sudden spurt in demand for gold. According to market estimates, as much as $1 billion worth of gold, or around 30 tonnes, has been imported since November 9.
 
GFMS Thomson Reuters estimates that India’s gross official import of gold was worth nearly $1.5 billion as of November 14. Of this, as much as $900 million worth of the metal was imported after the demonetisation of high-value legal tenders. While this estimate does not exclude gold imported for exports, such gold would have been a small part of total imports. It should be noted that the government had last month said that for according the status of a nominated agency, the export of gold jewellery from export-processing zones (EPZs) and export-oriented units (EoUs)  would not be taken into account.

 
The country’s import of the yellow metal had stood at about $3.5 billion in October, according to GFMS Thomson Reuters estimates.
 
The demand for gold had dropped in India during pitrupaksha, a 15-day period considered inauspicious by the Hindus for purchase or sale assets. But it significantly increased after that period, especially in the days leading up to Diwali.
 
According to Shekhar Bhandari, senior executive vice-president and business head, global transaction banking and precious metals, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said: “Gold demand has been good since Diwali, and the trend continues. In the past few days, especially amid a marriage season, customers have been seen using debit cards to make payments for jewellery.” This trend is being seen widely among organised or big jewellers.
 
Meanwhile at Zaveri Bazar, Indian Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA) on Sunday sent messages to jewellers that there was the possibility of the income-tax department asking them to deposit old currency with it by November 15, to stop the malpractice of selling gold at a premium for banned currencies. The last date for depositing the banned currency notes with banks or exchanges has otherwise been fixed as December 30.
 
So far, however, there has been no official communication on this from any department, according Surendra Mehta, Secretary, IBJA. “No jewellers, to our best knowledge, are accepting old notes now,” Mehta said.
 
Against an average monthly import of 30 tonnes since February, October alone saw an import of an estimated $3.5 billion, or 56 tonnes, of gold.
 
No one is ready to predict the import trend in the coming weeks, as there are fears that the government might impose a ban on gold imports. However, there has been no official word on this so far.

 

Sources:.business-standard.com