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Come Diwali, and you may well see the postman carrying a bag of pulses for you on order. For, the Centre has decided to use the postal network for distribution of subsidised pulses during the festival season, which has already begun.
A decision to this effect was taken here on Friday by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on prices of essential commodities, headed by Consumer Affairs Secretary, Hem Pande.
The committee reviewed availability and prices of essential commodities, especially pulses, and suggested that in the absence of Government outlets in the States, postal networks should be used for distribution, an official release said.
However, the modalities for the same are yet to be worked out.
The meeting also decided to release more chana (chickpea or Bengal gram) from the buffer stock to ensure availability of these commodities at reasonable prices during ongoing festival season, the release said. Among those who attended the meeting were senior officials of Ministry/Department of Agriculture, Food, Commerce, Revenue, MMTC, NAFED etc.
As per a recent BusinessLine report , for the first time prices of chana were ruling higher than tur (arhar or red gram) in several markets due supply-demand gap.
Last month, the Cabinet has raised the buffer stock limit to 20 lakh tonnes to be built through domestic procurement and imports of 10 lakh tonnes each at the cost of Rs 18,500 crore to check price rise and availability of pulses.
The Centre had also said that it was considering invoking the Essential Commodities Act as it was concerned about the gap between wholesale and retail prices of pulses. For instance, arhar wholesale was selling at Rs 111/kg but was being sold at Rs 119/kg at the retail level, urad wholesale was Rs 122/kg, but retail price was Rs 130/kg. According to the Ministry, the “ideal gap between wholesale and retails prices should be 0-15 per cent”.
Friday’s meeting also reviewed procurement arrangements of Kharif pulses by government agencies. It was informed that so far 500 procurement centres have been opened and farmers are being paid through check or bank transfer instantly. The government has set up procurement target of 50,000 tonnes for current Kharif pulses.
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