The Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) will hold a virtual meeting with all States and Union Territories on Monday to review the action taken on the stock limit order on edible prices.
DFPD Secretary Shri Sudhanshu Pandey in a letter to all states has said that the Department is focusing on the initiatives taken by the Union government to lower the prices of Edible Oils for consumer relief keeping the Indian festivals in mind.
The DFPD is monitoring the prices of edible oils and its availability to consumers. This is especially important to the context of the upcoming festival season in which demand for edible oils will increase. Various steps have already been taken by the government based on the interaction with all the states and edible oil industry associations, stock disclosure notification has been issued and DFPD has created a web portal to monitor the stock of edible oils/oilseeds every week in the country.
Demand and consumption of edibles are different for the different states/UTs as per the preference of the consumers. However, for finalizing the stock limit quantity of edible oils and oilseeds, the states/UTs may consider/explore the previous stock limit imposed for edible oils and oilseeds by the state/UTs. It may be considered that any stakeholder (refiners, millers, wholesalers, etc.) should not hold the stocks over two months of the storage capacity.
For guidance states may prefer to indicative limits which may have been imposed by states earlier is enclosed for consideration. However, for other categories, similar quantities as appropriate for the state may be fixed. For example: for refiners, stocks of a maximum of 2 months of the average scale of the last six months could be used. Similarly, quantities may be fixed for extractors/millers may be fixed.
(with inputs from Press Information Bureau)
