The government on Tuesday announced a relaxation on its orders restricting wheat exports. It said that wherever wheat consignments have been handed over to Customs for examination and registered into their systems on or before May 13, such consignments would be allowed for export.

The relaxation by the commerce ministry, which relates to the May 13 DGFT order that restricted wheat exports, applies to consignments handed over to customs on or before May 13. Even though wheat exports have been banned, the Indian government has said exports could still take place if New Delhi approved a request by other governments “to meet their food securities needs”. Egypt was in talks with India on the exemption.

Wheat consignment headed for Egypt is already under loading at the Kandla Port. A total 44,340 million tonnes of wheat had already been loaded, only 17,160 million tonnes was left to be loaded. Mera International India is the company engaged for wheat export to Egypt. The company gave representation to complete loading of 61,500 million tonnes of wheat.

On Tuesday, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), a commerce ministry arm that deals with export- and import-related matters, also asked authorities to issue registration of contracts (RCs) to the wheat exporters who have irrevocable letters of credit (LoC). The government has also allowed wheat outbound shipments with valid irrevocable LoC.