India had made it clear that it would not ratify the Trade Facilitation Agreement, a pact that seeks to ease custom norms, until a permanent solution was found on the food subsidy issue.

India had asked WTO to amend the norms for calculating agri subsidies so that the country could continue to procure foodgrain from farmers at minimum support price and sell them to poor at cheaper rates without violating the WTO norms.

The current WTO norms limit the value of food subsidies at 10 per cent of the total value of foodgrain production.

However, the quantum of subsidy is computed after taking into consideration prices that prevailed two decades ago.

There are apprehensions that once India would fully implement its food security programme it may breach the cap.

WTO members can drag India if it will cross the limit.

The food subsidy provided by India for paddy during 2010-11 worked out to be only around 6 per cent of the total output of the commodity in value terms. In case of wheat, the subsidy is negative by 1 per cent.