New Delhi: The government has taken steps to cool down the recent increase in retail prices of Tur and Urad for the welfare of consumers and to augment supply of these pulses. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said, in order to make the retail intervention more impactful, the price of pulses for retail intervention has been modified to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) or the Dynamic Reserve Price (DRP) whichever is lower. The Ministry said, accordingly, Dhuli Urad is being offered to States for retail intervention at the rate of 79 rupees per kilo for K-18 ( Stock of Kharif-2018) and 81 rupees per kilo for K-19. Similarly, Tur is being offered for retail intervention at 85 rupees per kilo. The Ministry said that the Central Government has made this offer to all the States and Union Territories to lift the stocks in bulk or in retail packs of 500 gram and one kilogram, depending on the requirement. The retail packs are being provided for retailing fair price shops of PDS and other marketing and retail outlets of the state government such as dairy and horticulture outlets.
The Ministry said, to moderate the price volatility of pulses and onions, especially in consuming centres, buffer stock was built under Price Stability Fund (PSF) during 2015-16 for carrying out price stabilizing interventions. Under PSF, building buffer stock of pulses up to 20 lakh Metric Tonnes was approved in the current year for effective market intervention.
