By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 31, 2020: FOOD Corporation of India and state agencies are all set to procure a record quantity of 742 LMT paddy during the ongoing Kharif crop season as against 627 LMT paddy last year. The number of purchase centres for Kharif 2020-21 have also been increased from 30,709 to 39,122. Stating this at a media interaction, Mr Piyush Goyal, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public distribution also said that the procurement season had been advanced to 26/09/2020 in view of the early arrival of paddy in the market.

The minister also spoke about the proactive steps to ensure affordable onions. The steps taken to moderate crisis are-

Proactive ban on onion export is imposed from 14/09/2020. DGFT  is facilitating import by private players. The Essential Commodities Act is invoked for onion stock limit of 25MT for wholesaler and 2MT for retailer, w.e.f. 23/10/2020. The Export of onion seeds is prohibited from 2020 and the disposal of onion from buffer stock is being done in order to provide relief to the people in view of the soaring onion prices.

Mr Piyush Goyal also said that the government is ensuring that steps are being taken to moderate potato prices. The import duty on potato was earlier 30%. Now, quota of 10 LMT @10% duty for import of potato till 31/01/2021 is notified.

Similarly, Steps have been taken to moderate the prices of pulses. There has been retail intervention in three pulses, viz. Moong, Urad and Tur Dal by supplying pulses from buffer stocks to States/UTs. 2 LMT of Tur from the buffer stock is to be disposed through open market sale in the next 15 Days.