Government sets stock limit of pulses for price crackdown

The Government of India has imposed stock limits on pulses for retailers, wholesalers, importers and millers. The order on stock limit has been issued for all states and UTs for all kinds of pulses except Moong till October-end this year. The government has set the 200 MT as stock limit for pulses provided no one can store more than 100 MT of one variety of pulse.

Taking forward the vision for Aatmanirbhar Bharat, the government has come up with a strategy to make sure that the prices of the essential commodities including the pulses remain under control. It has set up price monitoring centres across the country. A mobile app was also launched in January to report the prices on daily basis.

It was in March-April when a sustained increase in price of the pulses was reported and then the requirement for an urgent policy decision on this was felt. Hence, a mechanism has been adopted for the declaration of the stock of pulses on real time basis from all over the country. The step has been taken to keep a check on undesirable practice of hoarding which is responsible for artificial scarcity and escalation of the prices.

A web portal has also been developed to declare the stocks being held by various stockholders. The step has witnessed a positive response as 7001 registrations have taken place while the stocks worth 28.31 lakh MT have been declared. Moreover, MoUs have been signed with Myanmaar, Malawi and Mozambique for import of various pulses.