Keep tabs on pulse stocks: Centre

NEW DELHI : The spiraling prices of tur, moong and urad have prompted the Centre to ask all state governments to strictly implement the stock limit on them to avoid any artificial spike. The average retail price of arhar on Friday was almost 50 per cent higher than that recorded last year, while urad's was 70 per cent higher.

The government move is also prompted by the fact that patchy monsoon rains are expected to take a toll on food prices in the month ahead. It also wants to shield consumers from soaring prices of pulses and tame inflationary expectations.

The data accessed from the price monitoring cell of consumer affairs ministry shows that arhar was selling at Rs 70 (national average price) on July 3, 2014, while on Friday, the retail price was Rs 106 per kg. In the case of moong dal, the price has shot up from Rs 90 per kg in 2014 to Rs 108. Similarly, urad prices have increased from Rs 67.5 per kg to Rs 108.

"There is price rise in some pulses especially tur (arhar), moong and urad. But prices of chana (gram), matar (yellow peas) and masoor dal (red lentils) are stable. There is no point in having a blanket stock limit order on all pulses. So, we will ask states to have no stock limit on the latter three pulses, but to take strict action against hoarders of the other dal items," food and consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.

The consumer affairs ministry has convened a meeting of all state food and consumer affairs ministers next week to work out the strategy to check price rise of essential commodities during the festive season. Prices of pulses, onion, potato and tomato usually reach the peak during July-November period and soaring food prices grab headlines.

To check price rise, state governments are currently empowered to fix a stock holding limit on pulses and take action against traders if they hoard the stock beyond the prescribed ceiling. Almost all states have fixed stock limits on pulses.

Facing a major drop in domestic harvest of pulses — from 19.25 million tonnes in 2013-14 to 17.38 million tonnes in 2014-15 — the government has decided to import 5,000 tonnes of arhar and urad each. To avoid any crisis, the government has also approved utilizing part of the corpus kept under price stabilization fund to moderate the prices of pulses and make them available at affordable rate.

http://allianceresearch.in/