This fact is corroborated by the Rubber Board's own statistics, the production of NR (natural rubber) in the last four months has increased by 90 percent. The hike in NR consumption in the corresponding period, meanwhile, is only three percent.

With the domestic price of the popular variety RSS-4 collapsing to Rs 30.75 per kg in early November, neither the possibility of a consensus on international minimum price among NR (natural rubber) producing countries, nor the Rubber Board's repeated assurance of price recovery has consoled the rubber growers.

Hope, in fact, is pinned almost solely on Thailand's recent dissent note to the International Natural Rubber Organisation's (INRO) decision to ease its rubber inventory pile-up by June 30, said KK Abraham, who heads a farmers' organisation in Central Kerala.

According to plantation sources, Thailand's argument to hold off the market-flooding is likely to get more takers in INRO, especially after the organisation's encounter with blatant underquoting. As the tenders offering thinner and thinner prices poured in, INRO even had to halt to the auctions.

A joint session of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia to control the international prices is also yet to yield results. The meeting had also in vain considered a proposal to arrive at a minimum price for rubber.

What triggered the shadow-boxing round between the Indian rubber traders and the tyre industry buyers is the decision of INRO in its Kuala Lumpur conference to release the 1,38,000 tonnes in its warehouses to the market, before June 30. For the Indian sellers, it is the timing that has proved alarming. The floodgates of the huge rubber stocks are to open precisely when the NR price in the country has struck its 30-year low.

Because of the 25 per cent tariff on NR imports to India, an immediate avalanche of these stocks to Indian tyre houses is unlikely. But once the WTO agreement is effective from April, it may become difficult to arrest the tide of Malaysian rubber. Rubber, which is classified as an `industrial product' will not be able to take cover under a tariff wall after April.

For the domestic tyre industry, reeling under the slump in the automotive sector and the price hike in inputs like nylon tyre cord and synthetic rubber, the situation has proved only too handy. The gameplan of the tyre majors is to capitalise on the information gaps in the market to keep down the prices.

Rubber growers are hardly enthused by the new Rubber Board chairman Desalphin's rosy prediction of a price bounce back, once the overall NR production is regulated in tune to the demand vagaries.