The Odisha government today decided to open outlets in six major townships to provide pulses to consumers at fair price, an official said.
The Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department of Odisha Government and Odisha Byabasai Mahasangha (OBM) would jointly operate such outlets from this evening, said OBM president Sudhakar Panda.
While arhar dal would be sold at Rs 140 per kilogram, mung dal would be priced at Rs 110 a kilogram. One family would be allowed to purchase one kilogram of any variety each, said food supplies and consumer welfare secretary M S Padhi.
Padhi said that the outlets would be located in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Brahmapur and Balasore in the first phase. This apart, the department has also wrote letters to district collectors to adopt such procedure to provide pulses to consumers.
This model was recently started in Bargarh district to facilitate people to avail pulses at an affordable price.
Meanwhile, protesting the ongoing raids against hoarding of pulses, the Cuttack Chamber of Commerce (CCC) has decided not to procure pulses for the time being.
The CCC member Prashant Patra said as decided in the meeting yestreday, there would be no procurement of essential commodities in the Malgodown for an indefinite period from Wednesday.
Asked about the quanity of pulses seized furing the raids for last five days, Padhi said 13,000 quintals of pulses have been seized which would be confisicated as per the provisions of the Odisha Essential Commodities Act.
