NEW DELHI: Although retail prices of wheat and sugar have not shown significant change, the Centre on Tuesday claimed that spot prices of wheat had declined by 6.3 per cent from Rs. 922 a quintal in February to Rs. 864 a quintal (on July 13) "following the decision of the government to import five lakh tonnes of wheat on February 2."

Spot prices of sugar also showed a decline of 1.5 per cent "following the decision to import refined sugar at zero duty and ban export till the end of the year," an official release said.

According to official estimates, during the last one-month retail price of wheat had increased at Bhopal (11.11 per cent), Mumbai (3.7 per cent) and Bhubaneshwar (4.35 per cent) but showed declining trend at Bangalore (3.33 per cent) and Lucknow (2.11 per cent). The retail price of wheat declined by Re. 1 a kg in Delhi from Rs.11 a kg to Rs. 10 a kg between February and July, an official release said.

The spot prices of wheat are likely to soften further on physical arrival of imported wheat while the prices in the futures market would depend on the quality and the price of imported wheat being contracted by private trade at five per cent duty.

On the sugar front, retail prices of sugar have remained unchanged over the last 10 days. However, in the last one-month, the retail prices of sugar had shown a decline in Delhi and Bangalore (4.55 per cent), Shimla (2.17 per cent), Bhopal (2.33 per cent), Guwahati (4.35 per cent), Bhubaneshwar (2.27 per cent), and Chennai (2.50 per cent). Over the year, prices rose at all centres in the range of 4.76 per cent (Agartala) to 15.59 per cent (Lucknow and Guwahati).

The prices of all pulses declined during the week ending July 1 over the prices last year. In the case of tur dal the spot price declined by 13.8 per cent in the last month and futures prices by 15.2 per cent.

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