Panel to review price stabilisation fund

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 14 (PTI)

An expert committee has been set up to review the previous government's decision to establish a price stabilisation fund with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore for providing relief to small growers of plantation commodities like tea, coffee, rubber and tobacco, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

"An expert committee has been set up to review the scheme, and to make it more useful and attractive to growers," commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath said.

"It may be a good announcement but not a great scheme," the minister remarked while replying to a calling attention motion of P C Thomas (Kerala Congress) and M P Veerendra Kumar (JD-S).

They had sought a reply on the "situation arising out of the steep fall in prices of coffee, tea, pepper, vanilla, cardamom and areca-nut owing to the free trade agreements with neighbouring countries and steps taken by the government."

The minister rejected the contention that free trade agreements with neighbouring countries would have any adverse impact on the domestic growers of these commodities.