New Delhi: Going all out to arrest rising prices, the government on Friday announced its intent to amend the law to make hoarding a non-bailable offence and set up a price stabilisation fund to provide leverage to states to intervene in the market when required.
Insisting that there does not exist any reason for panic reaction, as there were sufficient food stocks in the country, the government blamed hoarding and speculative trading on the basis of reports of a weak monsoon for the rise in prices of commodities like onions and potatoes and asked states to crack down on hoarders.
At a meeting of state food and consumer affairs ministers, it was decided to strengthen the Essential Commodities Act to make hoarding a non-bailable offence. The ministers decided that the Centre would set up a price stabilisation fund to enable market intervention by states to tackle spike in prices of fruits and vegetables. The Centre had recently imposed a minimum export price and put stock holding limits on onions and potatoes.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, food minister Ram Vilas Paswan said, “There was a consensus that the Essential Commodities Act should be strengthened and more teeth should be provided to the law. The offences under the law should be made non-bailable.”
While Mr Paswan blamed hoarders for the recent spike in prices, finance minister Arun Jaitley stressed, “There is no panic situation.” Mr Jaitley, who along with agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh also attended the meeting, said there was no scarcity of any commodity and the normal supply was disrupted by hoarders anticipating higher prices.
“We have sufficient food grains stock with the government of India to face to any kind of situation. Depending on where the shortfall or deficient areas are.... If such a situation arises, we are equipped to deal with it,” Mr Jaitley said.
Mr Paswan said a proposal to make necessary amendments in the ECA would be moved for consideration of the Cabinet in a week. He, however, did not indicate the size of the price stabilisation fund being created or the time frame within which it will be set up.
Stating that rise in food prices is seasonal during monsoon months of July-September, Mr Paswan said it was decided that at least one storage space would be created in all the 635 districts in the country.
On implementation of the National Food Security Act, Mr Paswan said most of the states agreed to implement it in the next 3 months, but some including Telangana demanded extension of 6 months to one year to roll out this landmark legislation.
