Tur, urad prices: Centre asks states to monitor prices continuously; here's why

The Centre on Wednesday directed the state governments to continuously monitor the prices of tur and urad dal and take action on those violating the stock limit order.

This was conveyed in a meeting -- chaired by Nidhi Khare, Additional Secretary in the Consumer Affairs Ministry -- to review stock disclosure of tur and urad, and the implementation of stock limits by the state governments.

The representatives of the State Food and Civil Supplies Departments, Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and State Warehousing Corporations (SWCs) were present at the meeting.

"In the meeting, the state governments have been asked to continuously monitor the prices and verify the stock positions of stock-holding entities and take strict action on those who violated the stock limits order," an official statement said.

The retail prices, quantities of stocks disclosed by various stock-holding entities and stocks in the CWC and SWC warehouses in respect of tur and urad were reviewed in the meeting.

The action taken by states to verify the mismatches between quantities pledged by market players with banks, quantities declared on the stock disclosure portal and the enforcement of stock limits were also discussed with the states.

"Further, CWC and SWCs were asked to furnish details of tur and urad stocks in their respective warehouses, on a regular basis," the statement said.

On June 2, the government imposed stock limits on tur and urad till October 31 to prevent hoarding and unscrupulous speculation, besides improving affordability to the consumers.

A stock limit of 200 tonne was imposed on wholesalers; 5 tonne on retailers; 5 tonne at each retail outlet and 200 tonne at the depot of big chain retailers. In the case of millers, the stock limit was the last three months of production or 25 per cent of annual installed capacity, whichever is higher.

The order has also made it mandatory for these entities to declare the stock position on the portal https://fcainfoweb.nic.in/psp.

The stock limit order was the culmination of various steps taken by the government to ensure affordable tur and urad dals are available to consumers.

It was in March, the consumer affairs ministry had constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Khare to monitor the stock of tur held by entities like importers, millers, stockists, traders etc in close coordination with state governments.

A series of meetings were held with the state governments, importers, millers and organised retail chains to cooperate towards ensuring the affordability of the pulses for the consumers. The ministry had also deputed 12 senior officers to visit various places in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu to take stock of ground reality.