Free trade agreement - A boon or bane ?

In recent times Free trade Agreements ( FTA) undertaken by Indian Governments have polarized public opinion regarding the efficacy of the same Infact the Ministry of commerce lists 19 regional trade agreements which are in various stages of negotiations According to a rough estimate by 2014-15 India would have agreed on a reciprocal basis to eliminate tariffs on 85-90% of products with countries that account for 70% of Indias global trade But how prudent it is to open our huge market to the trading partners As like many issues in India it has thrown up arguments sometimes bordering on irrationality & sensationalism If we closely look at the FTA entered with ASEAN, one can understand the above assertion The FTA provide for eliminition of Tariffs on over 4000 products agri as well as industrial products This account for almost 80% of products It stipulates tariffs to be reduced to NIL by 2016 Roughly 10% products ( mainly agriproducts 500 in number) tariffs would be brought down to 5% These products are mainly plantation crops like coconut, tea,coffee,pepper,crude palm oil The final duty on sensitive farm products would still remain in the range of 37.5%to 50% Apart from this 489 items ( mostly farm products) would not be subjected to any tariff cuts So under the current situation Govt has done a commendable job The major grouse of the producers in India is that these smaller asian countries with better infrastructure and lower transaction costs would make our product offering uncompetitive which would later result in unemployment But this is a farfetched argument as international food boundries transcends every barriers Now the fight is for larger competitive production, high yeild & environmental issues We have to be prepared for the same As is clearly evident the future of every country in this planet is linked to food availability & production But at the same time Government has to keep a proper balance between the increase in imports & exports And more importantly SPS measures in Agricultural & food products some time act as a barrier So the govenment should remain vigilant while pursuing the objectives of FTA as for as Agrisector is concerned