New Delhi, Jan 17: The Centre is closely monitoring the prices and availability of essential food commodities to ensure affordability to the consumers and to maintain a stable price regime, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said in a statement issued on Friday.
Key Points
1.
Centre takes proactive steps to manage food commodity prices
2.
Pulse and onion production expected to increase in 2024-25
3.
Government implements strategic import-export and procurement policies
4.
Inflation rates show improvement compared to previous years
Measures like incentivising domestic production and calibrating import and export policies to ensure overall availability and affordability of essential food commodities are being taken up, the Centre stated in the statement.
The production of pulses and onion in 2024-25 is estimated to increase over last year due to good monsoon rains and favourable weather conditions. Tur production is estimated to be 35.02 LMT which is 2.5 per cent higher than last year's production of 34.17 LMT, the statement pointed out.
Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has also imposed sanctions for the procurement of Tur during the current marketing season. Chana and Masur production is expected to be good on account of good sowing and favourable soil moisture and weather conditions. Kharif Moong production is estimated to be 13.83 LMT, higher by 20 per cent compared to the previous year's production of 11.54 LMT.
Kharif and Late Kharif onion production has been estimated to be good on account of higher sowing. Similarly, the Rabi onion sowing has been progressing well. Similarly, the sowing of potatoes has been reported to be progressing well with favourable climatic conditions.
The statement highlighted that when compared with previous years, the annual average retail inflation rate of 4.95 per cent in 2024 is lower than rates for the previous two years which were 6.69 per cent in 2022 and 5.65 per cent in 2023. In retrospect, one can say from food price management point of view that the year 2024 had been navigated reasonably well despite several challenges.
The impact of the El-Nino phenomenon in 2022-23 and 2023-24 resulted in two consecutive years of below-average production of major pulses like Tur, Chana and Urad due to deficient and erratic monsoon rains in pulses growing states.
To meet the challenging situation, the government took several pre-emptive and timely decisions to maintain price stability taking into account the interest of the consumers as well as the farmers.
In order to incentivise the domestic production of pulses, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare removed the procurement ceiling under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) for traditionally imported pulses viz., Tur, Urad and Masur, thereby guaranteeing 100 per cent procurement at MSP in respect of these crop during 2024-25.
Pre-registration of farmers for assured procurement was taken up by NCCF and NAFED which include distribution of seeds and organising awareness programmes in districts beyond the traditional pulses growing areas.
To augment domestic availability, a duty-free import policy for Tur, Urad, and Masur, as well as the duty-free import of Chana, was allowed.
In order to make a direct impact on the retail prices of dals, the government also continued the sale of Chana Dal, Moong Dal and Masur Dal under the Bharat brand and held regular interactions with the Retailers Association of India and organised retail chains. These measures helped bring down the CPI pulses inflation rate from 19.54 per cent in January 2024 to 3.83 per cent in December 2024.
In the case of onions, the government procured 4.7 LMT of Rabi-2024 onions for the buffer stock which was then released to bring down prices. The average procurement price of Rs 2,833 per quintal in 2024-25 was higher than the procurement price of Rs 1,724 per quintal last year which benefited the onion farmers.
Considering the shortfall in onion production, the government had calibrated the onion export policy to ensure the domestic supply - export had been prohibited from 8th December 2023 till 3rd May 2024 after which it was liberalised again. The current policy has facilitated increased exports with monthly quantities of onion export increased from 0.72 LMT in September to 1.68 LMT in December 2024, the statement added.
