AIREA Executive Director, Anil Adlakha in the memorandum, drew the attention of Mr Vajpayee to the sorry state of rice exports. The exports of non-basmati rice has come to a virtual halt. The export of this commodity has declined from 4.36 million tonne in 1998-99 to 1.21 million tonne in 1999-2000 to 0.28 million tonne in the period April-October, last year in the current fiscal. All the export markets nurtured by Indian exporters since 1995-96 have been taken over, by the other Asian rice exporting countries like Thailand, Vietnam, China, Pakistan and Myanmar.

Mr Adlakha further stated that, as the Indian exporters started concentrating on exports of basmati rice, they came under sharp competition with Pakistan. Pakistan is trying to out-do Indian basmati exports, by selling its produce at much cheaper rates. Pakistani exporters have already garnered 20 per cent of the Indian basmati niche market.

In fact, Pakistan has many advantages, like shorter distances between rice mills and the port, subsidised transportation and packaging cost, lower rate of interest, more incentives to exporters, total income tax exemption and less sales taxes levied. Besides one US dollar fetches 59 Pakistani rupees as compared to Rs 46 in India. Comparatively, Indian exporters do not enjoy many of these facilities.