NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10: A promised rollback in petro prices was not all that it took the Government to get Mamata Banerjee back in the cabinet. There was another rollback, which went unnoticed.It had to do with another Mamata constituency - the jute industry of her state West Bengal. On October 6, the Cabinet rolled back its earlier decision to allow a 10 per cent cut in purchase of jute bags by the Food Corporation of India and replace with poly bags on a trial basis. On the same day, Mamata withdrew her resignation.Confirming the jute rollback to The Indian Express from his constituency in Palampur, Food Minister Shanta Kumar said that 10 per cent synthetic bags could have meant a saving of anything around Rs 50 crore to Rs 70 crore annually for the FCI. ``But we are back to the days of 100-per cent jute,'' said Shanta Kumar.When asked whether this had been done to appease ``Mamata didi'', Shanta Kumar sidestepped the question: ``All didis in the family should be kept happy.''The decision to try out HDPE and PP bags followed complaints of damaged sacks and grains and escalation in cost. Also, the synthetics bags cost 10 to 20 per cent less than the jute ones.The FCI spends anything between RS 750 crore to Rs 1,000 crore annually on the purchase of jute bags for storing and handling foodgrain procured by them to meet the demands of the Public Distribution System (PDS). The minister said that since the International Labour Organisation's directions that the bags handled by workers should not be more than 50 kg instead of the present 100-kg bags used widely by the FCI, the purchase of jute bags had gone up over the last few years.``Over the last few years, we are under ILO pressure to move in a phased manner to a system where all bags are 50-kg ones, making our demand for jute bags double,'' explains Kumar.Currently, the FCI is laden with 42 million tonnes of foodgrain. Even if 20 per cent of the stocks are assumed to be lying in the open, it means 35 crore more jute bags which are estimated to cost around Rs 20 per bag. If the switch over to the 50-kg bags is accounted for, this figure could be much higher.This does not account for the paddy procurement season for which jute bags have already been procured.
