Flour millers in South India have urged the Government not to impose duty on wheat imports stating that such a move would hurt the consumers’ interest.

In representations to the Food Ministry, millers from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka said that imports are being done only for blending to supplement the protein deficiency in the Indian wheat.

Also, the imports were negligible at less than five lakh tonnes when compared to the domestic output of around 90 million tonnes.

Negligible imports It has been reported that the Government is contemplating levying a 10 per cent duty on wheat imports in view of high stocks with Food Corporation of India. As the wheat crop was affected this year, the quality has been impacted and the buying norms were relaxed to help the farmers.

“Poor quality affects the nutrients in wheat and those with lower protein content cannot be used for bakery products as their quality deteriorates,” the Karnataka Roller Flour Millers Federation said in a memorandum sent to the Food Ministry on Thursday.

“Small quantity of imported wheat, which contains higher protein content, is only blended with local wheat variety to get the required mix and hence full requirement will not be imported. Extraneous circumstances warrant the import after a decade. The import of around 5 lakh tonnes against 27.6 million tonnes procured by FCI should not pose any problem in its sales,” the Federation said.

Also, the cost of imported wheat is not lower as stronger foreign currency is making it costlier. “Despite this, we need to provide better quality products for pasta, bakery, etc and hence it has become a necessity to import,” it argued.

Similarly, the Tamil Nadu Roller Flour Millers Federation said that it will not be fair on the part of the Government to pass on the poor quality wheat to the millers.

“We would like to bring to the notice of the Government that there is no offtake of wheat whatsoever in Tamil Nadu in the open market sales this year started in April due to the high floor prices fixed by FCI,” it added.

Import duty Previously the import duty was used as a weapon to shut the doors for foreign wheat and liquidate the wheat procured in the country.

“If this weapon is used now then the millers will be forced to grind only the rain affected wheat available now and the sufferer will be the common man consuming wheat and wheat products. We would also like to inform that only about 15 per cent of the requirements of the millers are now purchased from Australia. It may kindly be noted that not many northern millers opt for the import of wheat since wheat is grown there and the ports are not nearer whereas the Southern Millers has the viability to import wheat since the ports are nearer. The millers need indigenous wheat only for grinding and only 25 per cent of the imported Australian wheat will be used by our millers for blending purposes,” Tamil Nadu millers said.

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