Wheat stocks in perilous condition
New Delhi: The stocks position at the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is precarious to say the least. This has led to a 15 per cent fall in total offtake of foodgrains from the Central pool this year.

According to the latest monthly bulletin of the Department of Food and Public Distribution, the aggregate offtake of grains during April-May 2006, stood at 57.63 lakh tonnes (lt), and was 14.6 per cent below the 67.51 lt lifted over the same period last year. The decline is sharper, at 25 per cent (from 27.62 lt to 20.73 lt), for wheat. Rice offtake has fallen marginally by 7.5 per cent, from 39.89 lt to 36.90 lt.

This is reduced the scope for liberally allocating grains from the Central pool for exports and assorted new welfare schemes.

Total offtake of grains amounted to 496.34 lt in 2002-03 and 493.32 lt in 2003-04, which is around 41 lt per month. These fell in 2004-05 and 2005-06 to 414.75 lt and 419.79 lt, respectively or roughly 35 lt per month. Now this has dropped to below 29 lt this fiscal, which means 12 lt of less grain being released per month over the surplus situation in the 2002-04 period.

The monthly offtake levels on wheat are now down to hardly 10 lt, against 20 lt during 2002-03 and 2003-04 and 15 lt in 2004-05 and 2005-06. However, in rice, the Government has managed to keep up monthly lifting of 18-20 lt all through.
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Asean calls off FTA negotiations
New Delhi: Asean has called off its free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with India mainly because of the existing differences between the two sides on the items to include in the FTA.

The Indian government has expressed surprise at the statement as senior officials from India and Asean had recently agreed to come up with specific proposals to nudge the FTA talks forward.
Malaysia's international trade and industry minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz told the country's national news agency Bernama that the FTA talks had been suspended because India was reluctant to open its markets to the Southeast Asian countries.

India had refused to bring down its negative list of items which are to be excluded from the FTA below 852. Officials said the Malaysian minister had written to her counterparts in other Asean countries about two weeks back stating that the FTA should be called off if India refuses to prune its negative list to sixty items. However, the matter was taken care of in the Singapore meeting.

India finds Asean's proposal of a sensitive list containing less than 100 items unacceptable. It does not want to expose agriculture products like palm oil, pepper, tea and coffee to open competition, as is being demanded by the 10-member bloc. It, however, has offered to allow imports of specified agriculture items in limited quantities through tariff quotas.

Malaysia and Indonesia want to export palm oil to India duty free and rejected India's offer of allowing imports through tariff quotas.
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Four extra items come under taxable income
New Delhi: Interest earnings from bank deposits, National Savings Certificates, bonds and debentures of public sector units will also be included under taxable income now. The department could levy an interest or penalty for concealing such incomes according to a message from the income tax department for tax payers. In the budget of '06-07, the finance ministry has erased a tax shelter, exempting interest income earned from these sources upto Rs12,000. There was also an additional deduction of Rs3,000 on interest on Government securities.
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