Even as the tur and urad prices have been on the rise of late, the government is making efforts to keep the prices of the pulses under check. The food and public distribution ministry has now taken measures to regularly monitor the tur and urad stocks in the country.
Recently, the rates of these pulses jumped 8-10 per cent. Apart from this, chala dal prices also rose 4-5 per cent. India imports about 60 per cent of its lentils, and since toor dal is a staple food that people use almost every day.
“Senior officers from the Department of Consumer Affairs visited 10 various locations across four states (Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu) to interact and observe stock disclosure status of Tur and Urad during past days,” the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said in a statement on Monday.
The interactions with ground-level market players and state officials showed that while the number of registration and stock disclosure on the e-portal is increasing, substantial number of market players have either not registered or failed to update their stock positions on a regular basis, it said.
The ministry also said, “It has been observed that stocks under the transaction, like farmer’s stocks lying in mandi for auction, stocks awaiting customs clearance at ports, etc., escaped the current monitoring mechanism. Further, it has also been observed that millers and traders/dealers have resorted to holding their stocks in warehouses in the name of farmers in a deliberate attempt to escape stock declaration.”
The ministry has already directed state governments and district administrations to intensify the enforcement of stock declaration by conducting stock verification, and take strict action on undisclosed stocks under relevant sections of the EC Act, 1955 and the Prevention of Black marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980. States have also been asked to look into the data pertaining to FSSAI licences, APMC registration, GST registration, warehouses and custom bonded warehouses and encourage these entities also to report their declarations of stock in order to widen the coverage of market players.
To improve the stock disclosure data, the department is making certain changes in the e-portal https://fcainfoweb.nic.in/psp/ such as incorporating text boxes for providing warehouse in which stock is held, provision for dealer/commission agent/mandi trader to upload stock data of farmer lying in his shop yard for auctioning etc. Further, the department has been in touch with Customs to take necessary action on importers who have deliberately delayed clearance of their consignments.
“The department affirms its intention to sustain the efforts on monitoring the stocks of tur and urad. In this regard, subsequent follow-up visits are being planned in addition to the weekly review meetings taken by the Committee for Stock Monitoring under the chairmanship of Nidhi Khare, additional secretary of Department of Consumer Affairs,” the ministry said.
Last month, the government formed a committee to monitor dal prices. The committee discussed the stock of toor dal held by various entities such as importers, millers, stockists, traders and others.
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