The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Wheat import resumes at last

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Wheat import resumes at last

Staff Reporter

To be distributed in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala It will be distributed in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala

PHOTO: S. THANTHONI

OFFICIAL INSPECTION: Samples being taken of the wheat consignment that came to Chennai on Tuesday.

CHENNAI: India resumed wheat import after several years on Tuesday, when the vessel M.V. Furness Australia, laden with over half a lakh tonne of the food grain arrived at the Chennai port.

Hectic activity accompanied the berthing of the vessel at West Quay-4 with officials from various agencies concerned, including Food Corporation of India and the regional Plant Quarantine office, completing the formalities.

Samples were taken for tests soon after the berthing of the nearly 200-metres-long vessel from Adelaide, even as several hoppers and a fleet of trucks to be deployed in the cargo discharge were kept ready nearby. Several labourers made arrangements for the cargo handling that an official of the Chennai Port Trust expected to begin from the third shift later in the evening.

Coming onboard the vessel, Chennai Port Trust Chairman K. Suresh said the cargo was expected to be discharged within a week. He noted that a depression forming near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands was expected to move northwards in a few days. A senior official of FCI said in the event of rain there would be little option but to close the hatches to protect the grain. The FCI, he added, would be distributing the cargo in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala under the public distribution system.

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