New Delhi : Stung by the escalating prices of essential commodities, including pulses and select vegetables, the Centre on Wednesday went into damage control and chalked out a roadmap and stringent measures to bring down the prices.
“In order to bring down the growing prices of pulses, the government today decided to boost imports via public and private agencies. This will help meet the deficit,” an official source told IANS. The government is also keen to work out joint strategies with states on the price rise front and sought urgent steps on adequate procurement and actions against hoarders. The decisions were taken at a meeting of a high-powered ministerial team headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley here.
The meeting attended by Ministers Radha Mohan Singh (Agriculture), Ram Vilas Paswan (Food), Nirmala Sitharaman (Commerce) besides two senior ministers Nitin Gadkari and M. Venkaiah Naidu and senior officials from the Food, Finance and Agriculture ministries reviewed steps taken so far on inadequate storage facilities and procurement problems.
Earlier in the day, the Food ministry also flagged off mobile vans for selling pulses at reasonable prices in the capital.
The meeting was informed that 1.15 lakh tonnes pulses have been procured directly from farmers.
At the meeting, Food Minister Paswan briefed his colleagues that while a pulse buffer stock is ready, the response from many states has not been encouraging.
“We have created a buffer stock and have asked states to place their requirement for retail distribution,” he said. The high-powered ministerial panel met on the directive of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as growing prices of essential item potatoes (60 per cent dearer in wholesale markets) and pulses getting costlier by 36 per cent over the past year, pushed up India’s annual wholesale inflation for the second month in May to its highest levels in nearly two years.
