The tyre and rubber industries have expressed concern over the disparity in rubber stock figures and communicated the anomalies to the Commerce Ministry.
In its communication to the Additional Secretary (Plantations), who is also the Chairman of the Expert Committee to draft the National Rubber Policy, the industry said rubber stock figures at the end of August as released by the Rubber Board show a discrepancy of approximately one lakh tonnes.
According to the industry, based on the opening stocks of rubber in April and factoring the key parameters of production, consumption, import and export, the closing stock ought to have been 2.85 lakh tonnes at the end of August.
However, the stock figures published by the board are 1.85 lakh tonnes. In effect, a whopping 1 lakh tonnes has been ‘adjusted’ without any explanation. The discrepancy of one lakh tonnes is huge and has significant consequences for all stakeholders, the industry said.
Since the stock figure is only a derived one and import and export figures are fairly accurate, the inconsistency in stock figure is only a pointer to an anomaly in production or consumption data. In other words, either production is being over estimated or consumption is being under estimated or a combination of both, said Rajiv Budhraja, Director General ATMA.
Adjustment of rubber stock data through self-correction at periodic intervals without baseline correction in production and consumption figures presents a distorted picture. Since the Government policy is determined by imports (as well as the stocks in the country), such an anomaly would lead to flawed assumptions and, hence, erroneous outcomes, said Mohinder Gupta, President, All-India Rubber Industries’ Association (AIRIA).