The Hindu Business Line : YSR calls for tighter control of essential commodity market

Officials have been asked to make frequent surprise visits to all Rythu Bazars, super bazars and other big kirana shops to check illegal hoarding of commodities. In order to regulate the open market, the vigilance department conducted 1,071 raids, booked 335 cases and confiscated 3,70,502 quintals of pulses.

Hyderabad April 8 The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, has said that the Government would continue its war against soaring prices of essential commodities and take stern action against hoarders and black-marketers.

The Chief Minister, who reviewed the price situation, directed that the Special Cell set up by the Civil Supplies Department strictly monitor the prices of essential commodities on a daily basis and ensure that they were available to the consumers at reasonable prices.

SURPRISE CHECKS

He asked the officials to make frequent surprise visits to all Rythu Bazars, super bazars and other big kirana shops to check illegal hoarding of commodities, resulting in abnormal increase in their prices. The Chief Minister instructed that the Vigilance department too continue its raids on hoarders and black-marketeers and take stringent action against them.

The officials told the Chief Minister that the Price Monitoring Cell in the Commissionerate of Civil Supplies was gathering information on prices from 102 centres daily, across the State, and advising the Collectors to position sufficient stocks to bring down the prices.

Price control

Elaborating the steps taken to contain the prices of various essential commodities, the officials said that sale of KP onions at Rs 6 a kg and Nasik onions at Rs 7 a kg had an impact on the price of local variety of onions, resulting in a fall in the prices in the open market by Rs 3 to Rs 5 a kg.

Similarly, Rice Millers Association has come forward to sell rice in special counters in all Rythu Bazars at Re 1 less than the prevailing market rate.

Dal millers and wholesale traders also had set up counters to sell dal at a price Rs 2 to Rs 5 less than the open market price.

Besides, a considerable decrease in the prices of pulses resulted due to raids on the traders, an official release claimed.

Raids, regulations

In order to regulate the open market, the vigilance department conducted 1,071 raids, booked 335 cases and confiscated 3,70,502.14 quintals of pulses worth Rs 73.48 crore.

The officials further told the Chief Minister that the Andhra Pradesh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (Markfed) had procured 7,177 quintals of red gram and supplied to consumers through Rythu Bazars at Rs 30 a kg for the Grade-I variety and Rs 26 a kg for Grade-II.

The Chief Minister directed the Markfed to procure about 10,000 metric tonnes (mt) of red gram, 1,000 mt of black gram and 500 mt of green gram from the farmers for sale at affordable prices under market intervention operations.

So far, Markfed had procured 1,000 mt of red gram, the officials said.

Regarding sale of Tamarind, the officials said that Girijan Cooperative Corporation had been asked to procure huge quantities of tamarind from the tribals for arranging supplies through Rythu Bazars and special counters.

So far, the Corporation had procured 17,000 quintals of seeded tamarind from the tribals as against the target of 80,000 quintals.

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