Centre seeks states' comments on price stabilisation measures

Officials say essential commodities regulation is a concurrent subject and no action can be taken without more than 50% concurrence from states

The Department of Food has once again has sought comments from various states on a priority basis on the 13-point agenda set at the conference of ministers of consumer affairs across states last year.

The 13-point agenda was drawn up to prepare an action plan for specific preventive measures to arrest price rise particularly of vegetables, pulses and other food items of common consumption.

Officials stated none of the states have given their views as on date and therefore the agenda has been sent once again for comments.

As per the immediate action to check prices and provide mass consumption, the action plan will cover rice, jowar, bajra, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, moong dal, masoor dal, tuar dal and edible oils, bread, milk and eggs.

Officials explained that essential commodities regulation is a concurrent subject and no action can be taken without more than 50% concurrence from the states.

The States were supposed to map vulnerable areas prone to supply shortages for special monitoring and ensure that “stock-out” situations do not occur especially for these items of common consumption. In areas where coarse cereals like Jowar, Bajra and Maize constitute the staple diet, close monitoring of the availability of these commodities will be done.

Further, states would mobilise existing storage capacity utilizing the Government/private/cooperative storage infrastructure to ensure that adequate decentralized stocks are maintained across different cities/rural areas of the State to ensure adequate supplies of these commodities.

Besides, States will establish a Price Monitoring Cell that will monitor the prices of these specific commodities on the basis of wholesale prices at the mandies as well as the retail prices obtaining in various parts of the State. This is to enable the States to make market interventions on a real time basis.

Besides, states have been advised to establish a revolving fund for buying products/produce in bulk and regulate their storage as well as distribution to meet peak demand during festival season at reasonable prices. This should be done through the Public Distribution System for the benefit of the BPL Card holders.

Effective operations against hoarders and black-marketeers will need to be taken and the food grains stocks seized will be distributed through retail outlets of the Food and Civil Supplies Corporation. Inter-state movement, de-hoarding operations and decentralized stocking of onion to meet the dispersed demand across the country will be ensured and central onion stock will be maintained.

This is because onion will constitute a major challenge since five States - Maharashtra (28%), Madhya Pradesh (16%), Karnataka (14%), and Andhra Pradesh (9%), Bihar (7%) account for 75% of the total production of onions.

Further, vegetables, fruits and other perishable commodities which are price sensitive will be removed from the ambit of the APMC Act. Some states, official sources said have already embarked upon this exercise and some states have even exempted these perishable commodities from the APMC yard taxes/local fees. These comments are essential for setting up the guidelines for the upcoming price stabilization fund, said sources.