Govt plans NBW against hoarders to curb prices

NEW DELHI: Stepping up its efforts to get rid of hoarding and black marketeering, the government will soon amend the Essential Commodities Act making such offences non-bailable. Food and consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the draft amendment will be circulated soon. He added the state ministers have supported this proposal.
In a first-of-its-kind move, Centre and states on Friday chalked out a focused action plan to check price rise of key essential commodities including onion, potato, tomato, pluses, bread, milk, egg & edible oils.It was unanimously decided that state governments will map vulnerable areas that are prone to supply shortages. These areas will be monitored to ensure that “stock out” situations don’t occur for such items.
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Paswan said Centre will set up a price stabilization fund that will enable states to undertake market intervention when the prices of such essential items including perishable ones go up. However, he did not give details about the corpus and time frame for this.
Addressing state consumer affairs ministers, finance minister Arun Jaitley said the government has started taking concrete steps much before the problem becomes bigger. He said there is nothing to panic since there is enough stock.

“There are reports of below normal monsoon this year. There are some middlemen who are trying to take advantage of the situation…The challenge is to take out the food stuff that middlemen are hoarding with them,” he said.
Seeking state governments’ cooperation to check food prices, Jaitley said this is responsibility of all governments and not an issue of “whose right it is”.
According to an official release, it was decided in the meeting that the state governments will establish a price monitoring cell for these specific commodities during the critical six months, something that will help government to intervene on a real time basis.
Since inadequate storage has been identified as the key reason behind sudden drying up of supply, the states will mobilize existing storage capacity utilizing the storage infrastructure of government, private and cooperatives. This will be done to ensure that there is adequate stock of essential items across cities and even rural areas.
The government also said that states will be encouraged to establish a revolving fund for buying produce in bulk. They can regulate storage and distribution of these items to meet peak demand during festive season at reasonable prices.
The Narendra Modi government committed to ensure free inter-state movement and decentralized stocking of onion across country and is also considering the need to maintain a “central stock”. This will be done considering only five states – Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar – account for 75% of all the total onion production in the country. According to consumer affairs department, the onion whole-sale market is controlled by a cartel of about 12-15 wholesalers across the country.
Keeping in mind that poor are the worst hit by price rise of essential food items, the government also advised the state food supplies corporations to partner with network of cooperative societies to sell such items through PDS for economically weaker sections.
Action Plan to check prices:
* Onion, potato, tomato, moong, arhar and masur dals, rice, jowar, bread, milk & eggs will be covered
* States to map vulnerable areas prone to supply shortage for monitoring
* States to mobilize existing storage capacity utilizing govt/ private/ cooperative storage to keep stocks across cities & rural areas
* States to set up price monitoring cell during July-December
* States can establish a revolving fund for buying produce in bulk & regulate their storage & distribute them
* State food & civil supplies corporation to partner with network of cooperative societies to sell key essential commodities through PDS, especially to poor
* Effective operations against hoarders & black marketeers
* Stringent EC Act making offences non-bailable
* Create central stock of onions for emergency
* Vegetables, fruits & other perishable commodities to be removed from APMC Act ambit
* Exempt these items from APMC yard taxes & local fees
* Centre to set up Price Stabilization Fund for market intervention