New Delhi, July 22 (UNI) Concerned over increase in food prices in the last financial year, the government has outlined several steps to be undertaken to keep prices of essential commodities, especially edible oils and pulses, and improve the storage and processing facilities for vegetables in the current fiscal and years to come.
Presenting the Economic Survey for 2023-24, considered to be report card of the economy in the previous year, the government said there are several reason for pressure on prices of several food items including import dependence for edible oils and pulses and thus has taken measures to overcome shortage.
The domestic consumption of edible oils has been increasing faster than production, leading to increased import dependence. To reverse this pattern and to stabilize domestic prices, it is important to make focused efforts to increase the production of major oilseeds such as sunflower and rapeseed and mustard, and explore the potential of non-conventional oils such as rice bran oil and corn oil.
The possibility of expanding the scope of the National Mission on Edible Oils beyond palm oil to other major oilseeds is worth an examination, said the Economic Survey.
Similarly, India faces a persistent deficit in pulses and consequent price pressures. Production of pulses is concentrated in a few states and districts in the country, and is vulnerable to biotic and abiotic stresses. More efforts are needed to expand the area under pulses, particularly lentils, tur, and urad, in more districts and rice-fallow areas.
It is also worth considering promoting the summer cultivation of urad and moong in areas with assured irrigation facilities.
The government took swift and effective administrative action in the last fiscal to deal with price flare-ups in specific items. This was based on daily monitoring of prices at more than 500 centres, the Survey said, adding, prospectively, an important factor that can improve the swiftness and effectiveness of such action is complete clarity on prices and their indices.
Administrative measures to contain food prices included calibrated release of stocks from the buffer of pulses to ensure availability and affordability to consumers.
The government said to augment domestic availability and moderate the prices of pulses, import of Tur and urad has been kept under ‘Free Category’ until March 31, 2025. Basic import duty on masur was reduced to zero until 31 March 2024.
The government has also launched Bharat Dal in July 2023 to convert chana stock into chana dal for retail disposal at a highly subsidized rate. Later, the Bharat Dal was extended to include Moong Dal and Moong Sabut.
Besides, India imported considerable quantities of Tur (mainly from Mozambique, Myanmar, Tanzania, Sudan and Malawi), Masur (mainly from Australia, Canada and Russia) and Urad (mainly from Myanmar) in FY24.
The government informed that export of wheat flour, maida and semolina was placed under a prohibited category since August 2022. To prevent hoarding and unscrupulous speculation, stock limits were imposed on wheat from June 2023 to March 2024.
In November 2023, the government introduced Bharat Atta at a subsidized price of Rs 27.50 per kg to make it affordable for consumers, it said, adding wheat and rice are offloaded periodically from the central pool under open market sale.
Prices of vegetable contribute to inflation significantly and the production prospects of vegetables and pulses were particularly impacted by unfavourable weather conditions.
The increase in tomato prices in July 2023 was caused by seasonal changes in crop production, region-specific crop diseases such as white fly infestation, and the early arrival of monsoon rains in the northern part of the country.
There were also logistics disruptions in isolated areas due to heavy rains. The spike in onion prices was due to several factors, including rainfall during the last harvesting season affecting the quality of rabi onions, delays in sowing during the kharif season, prolonged dry spells impacting kharif production, and trade-related measures taken by other countries.
There have been many efforts by the government to improve the storage and processing facilities for vegetables. In view of the continuing seasonal surges in the prices of vegetables like tomato and onion, it is important to assess the progress in developing modern storage facilities conducive to such specific crops, and evaluate the viability of such facilities whose services have highly seasonal demand.
The government has, however, exuded confidence that it will take all possible steps required to keep the inflation especially food inflation within the target and also complemented the approach adopted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for its policy decisions to keep inflation under control.
