Centre continues crackdown on hoarders, seizes over 36,000 tonnes of pulses

The Central government continued its crackdown on hoarders across the nation, resulting into recovery of 36,000 tonnes of pulses from the hoarders across the nation in the last two to three days.

"Around 3,300 searches were conducted against the hoarders in various states to recover the hoarded quantity. The amount which has been recovered in these raids has already touched 3,000 metric tonnes," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after inter ministerial group assessed the stock and price situation of pulses.

"The seized pulses will be milled and offloaded in the market which will ease the prices of pulses in wholesale and retail market," he added.

Jaitely also said that 5,000 tonnes of imported pulses have already arrived and are being distributed, adding that the states acted only after Central Government put pressure on them for anti-hoarding operations.

"The raids will continue against the hoarders in the coming days also," he added.

The Finance Minister attributed the spiralling prices to decline in domestic as well as global production of pulses.

"The hoarders took advantage of the situation and prices went up," he added.

Jaitley also urged the states to take stringent action against the big hoarders as they have hurt the consumer interest in the country.