BHOPAL : Following resentment among traders over sudden enforcement of the order imposing limits on stocks of pulses, the government, on Sunday, decided to postpone raids for three days.
A government communiqué said that the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Departments has urged traders to complete the process of maintaining documents and updating accounts of stock as per provisions of the “Madhya Pradesh Essential Commodities Traders (Stock Limit and Prohibition on Hoarding) Order 2015 within three days. After the period of three days, strict action as per rules will be taken against traders for keeping stocks more than limit and not maintaining records.
The order was issued on October 17 to control unprecedented increase in prices of tuar, urad, moong and masoor pulses in the state. Through the order, stock for wholesale traders of all kinds of pulses has been limited to 2000 quintals in “A” Category cities, 1000 quintals in “B” Category cities and 500 quintals in other areas. Maximum limit for retail sellers is 50 quintals in “A” and “B” Category cities and 40 quintals in other areas.
Apart from above mentioned provisions, wholesalers of pulses are also required to maintain daily stock registers, pucca bills of sale and purchase and receipts issued by Mandi. These documents will have to be produced by traders during inspection. Every trader is required to display lists of stock and prices of pulses at entry gate or any other easily visible place at his establishment.
Government authorities had started raiding the establishments of the traders within hours of the issuance of the orders, giving them no time to comply with its provisions.
Akhil Bharatiya Vyapar Mandal Sangathan general secretary Anupam Agrawal said, “There is resentment in traders as state government invoked price control and stock limit order without informing traders. Our request to government is that whatever act it wants to introduce, first it should convene a meeting with businessmen. It is very unfortunate that state government invoked this act and conducted raids. On first day (October 17), raids were conducted when the businessmen had no knowledge of the prescribed limit.”
Traders of Bhopal, under banner of Akhil Bharatiya Vypar Mandal Sangathan will call on Food Minister Vijay Shah on Monday in this regard.
In reply to question about licenses for trading in pulses not being issued since 2001, Agrawal said, “We are not under the purview of License Raj. We do our business on the basis of Gumasta certificate.
