1 Uncorrected/ Not for publication- 08.12.2009 SSS-AKG/11.00/1A ...

218Uncorrected/ Not for publication- 08.12.2009availability. We have been encouraging imports, as I said, anddiscouraging exports.TDB/4E/6.25(Continued by 4E)SHRI SHARAD PAWAR (CONTD.): From the last one year, we havetotally banned rice export, other than Basmati. We have banned wheatexport. We have banned, except one or two small items which arerequired for Indian community, particularly in the Gulf, edible oils fromour side. So, we have now totally banned a number of items. And, thereare a number of items where we have practically removed 100 per centduty. We have done it because we want availability should be there inthe country. To ensure that the vulnerable sections of the country areprotected, the Government of India has given considerable support tothe Public Distribution System. An extremely important step in thisdirection has been to keep the Central issue price constant since theyear 2002. We have two prices. One is acquisition price from farmer. Thesecond is the issue price for the public distribution. These are twoprices, and practically, the issue price is constant for years together.But, the acquisition prices have been increasing. That has beenenhanced. The Minimum Support Price in the last five years has beenenhanced by practically up to 70 to 80 per cent. At the same time,thanks to the record production of last year, the Government procured arecord 58.53 million tonnes of food grains, i.e., 33.30 million tonnes ofrice and 25.23 million tonnes of wheat this year. As a result, the CentralPool Stock of wheat as on 1 st November, 2009 was 266.88 lakh tonnes.In 2009-10, the quantity of 129 lakh tonnes of rice has been procured till