New Delhi, Sep 4 (IANS) The government has decided to remove customs duty on import of wheat by private companies to check high retail prices, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here Monday.

"We have taken the decision to allow private wheat imports duty free. The notification will be issued shortly," Pawar told the media on the sidelines of a global meet on fisheries and aquaculture.

Stating that the government is open to more wheat imports, he said the facility to import wheat duty free "will be available for the next four-five months, maybe until December or January."

Since June, when the government cut import duty on wheat from 50 percent to five percent to allow private companies to supplement its efforts to import 5.5 million tonne wheat in order to boost buffer stocks following lower than expected crop production, according to official estimates hardly 1.2 million tonnes wheat has so far been imported by traders.

Imports by private traders are meant for use by food industries for manufacture of wheat-based products like biscuits, bread and wheat flour.

The minister expected that plans to import 5.5 million tonnes of wheat through the State Trading Corporation would suffice till the next wheat harvest season beginning mid-April.

He said a special campaign to raise acreage in non-traditional wheat-growing regions like West Bengal would be undertaken this year to boost production.

With good rains in most of the wheat-producing areas like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, Pawar expected the 2007 crop to be better than that of this year. Haryana is the only wheat-growing state that has received lower than expected rainfall during the June-September monsoon season.