There were no bids as suppliers were sceptical of giving in for the bid validity period as prices may move during the 20-day validity period. On Jul 9, DGFT had allowed import of 400,000 tn of maize under the tariff rate quota at a reduced import duty of 15%. The government had said that applications for imports had to be submitted to state trading enterprises. For 2019-20 kharif season, poultry feed and starch manufacturers, the key industrial users of maize, peg maize output at 16.1 mln tn, lower than the government's estimate of 19.9 mln tn. The government has pegged 2018-19 maize output at 27.2 mln tn compared with 28.8 mln tn in 2017-18. MMTC Ltd and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India were allocated an import quota of 200,000 tn each for maize during the current financial year. Domestic end-users have been urging the government to allow maize imports due to a smaller crop in 2018-19 (Jul-Jun) and the kharif period of the current season.