Wrong way out(Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:Governance 
Prelims level: Minimum export price
Mains level: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation

Context:

• Retail prices of onions have crossed Rs 40 per kg in Delhi, more than doubling in the last one month.
• The Narendra Modi government has responded straightaway by banning exports.

Minimum export price:

• The quantities involved aren’t small. In 2019-20, India exported 11.50 lakh tonnes (lt) of the bulb, which fetched Rs 2,320.70 crore.
• These numbers stood even higher, at 21.84 lt and Rs 3,468.87 crore in the preceding fiscal.
• In previous episodes of price increase, the government used to not hit the brakes immediately.
• It would initially impose a minimum export price below which shipments weren’t allowed and then raise this gradually in order to discourage any sales outside the country.
• An outright ban would typically come as a last resort, when domestic prices continued to rise.

Heavy burden:

• This time, any semblanceof gradualism has been dispensedwith.
• The trigger seems to be the latest data on consumer price index inflation for August, which, at 6.69 per cent, was above the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) upper target limit of 6 per cent.
• Moreover, retail prices of food, which are a disproportionate 45.86 per cent in the overall index, are up 9.05 per cent.
• Sticky food prices, compounded by uncertainty over the extent of damage to the standing kharif crop from excessive August rains, have complicated the RBI’s task of further cutting interest rates to revive the economy that is in contraction mode.
• And in this case, it’s the entire “POT” (potato, onion, tomato) complex that is on the boil.
• Potatoes and tomatoes, too, are now retailing at over Rs 35 and Rs 50 per kg, respectively. That, of course, has a huge bearing on inflation expectations of households.

Rescind ban:

• The current export ban comes, ironically, even as the Narendra Modi government is set to pass major reform laws for removing all movement and stockholding restrictions on farm produce.
• Onion growers have reasons to feel aggrievedabout the government intervening only on behalf of consumers.
• The same bulb that is wholesaling today at Rs 28-30/kg in Maharashtra’s Lasalgaon market was trading at Rs 6.50-7 just over a month ago.
• The government must, to ensure the credibility of its recent agricultural reform measures, rescindthe export ban.
• Farming is a tough job with inherent weather and price-related uncertainties.
• Building export markets takes time and entrepreneurial effort. The government, if it wants to help consumers, should build a buffer stock of all essential foodstuffs.
• The time has come to stop forcing producers to bear the burden of inflation targeting.

Conclusion:

• Government must, to ensure credibility of its recent agricultural reform measures, rescind onion export ban.
   

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General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Material

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the Moplah or Malabar rebellion, consider the following statements:

1. It was started in 1910.
2. It was started as resistance against the British colonial rule, the prevailing feudal system, and in favour of the Khilafat Movement in South Malabar but ended in communal violence.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: B

Mains Questions:

Q.1)Indian Agriculture is in a dire need of fundamental reforms for better fiscal and environmental sustainability. Discuss.