Ahead of the festive season, the Union government, in a bid to ensure the stability of prices of lentils [masoor daal], has asked the traders and other stakeholders to declare their stocks of the pulses.
“Any undisclosed stock if found, will be considered as hoarding and suitable action under EC Act [The Essential Commodities Act, 1955] would be initiated,” a statement issued by the Press Information Bureau mentioned today, on September 6.
It mentioned that the objective is to procure available stocks at prices around the minimum support price [MSP].
“This came at a time when NAFED [National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India] and NCCF [National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation] had to suspend their tenders to purchase imported lentils due to exorbitantly high bids received from few suppliers amid hints of cartelization,” Rohit Kumar Singh, Secretary of the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution was quoted in the statement.
He added that at a time when lentil import flow increases from Canada and Tur imports from African countries, ‘few players are trying to manipulate the market against the interest of the consumers and the Nation’.
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“Government is watching the developments very closely and would initiate stringent measures to get the stock released into the market so that availability of all pulses at reasonable prices in the festival season is ensured,” he was quoted.
