Stock limits on pulses

5th July, 2021 Agriculture

In News

Central Govt. has imposed stock limits on all pulses except moong held by wholesalers, retailers, importers, and millers till October 2021.
The stock limit of 200 tonnes, for any one variety of pulses, has been imposed on wholesalers.
The decision is to prevent hoarding and check price rise.

Details

An order in this regard has been issued by the Union Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry.
The Department of Consumer Affairs issued the Removal of Licensing Requirements, Stock Limits, and Movement Restrictions on Specified Foodstuffs (Amendment) Order, 2021.
It prescribes the limits imposed on the stock of a commodity with immediate effect.
The order has been issued in exercise of the powers conferred by the Essential Commodities Act, 1955
If the stocks of entities exceed the prescribed limits, it has to be declared on the online portal of the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Further, the stock has to be brought within the prescribed limit within 30 days of the notification of the order.

Essential Commodities Act: Definition of an ‘essential commodity’

There is no specific definition of essential commodities in The EC Act.
Section 2(A) of the act states that an “essential commodity” means a commodity specified in the “Schedule” of this Act.
The Act gives powers to the central government to add or remove a commodity in the “Schedule.”
The Centre, if it is satisfied that it is necessary to do so in public interest, can notify an item as essential, in consultation with state governments.
At present, the “Schedule” contains 9 commodities — drugs; fertilisers, whether inorganic, organic or mixed; foodstuffs, including edible oils; hank yarn made wholly from cotton; petroleum and petroleum products; raw jute and jute textiles; seeds of food-crops and seeds of fruits and vegetables, seeds of cattle fodder, jute seed, cotton seed; face masks; and hand sanitisers.
The latest items added to this schedule are face masks and hand sanitisers, which were declared essential commodities with effect from March 13, 2020 in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak.
By declaring a commodity as essential, the government can control the production, supply, and distribution of that commodity, and impose a stock limit.

Imposing Stock Limits

Under the amended EC Act, agri-food stuffs can only be regulated under extraordinary circumstances such as war, famine, extraordinary price rise, and natural calamity.
However, any action on imposing stock limits will be based on the price trigger.
Thus, in case of horticultural produce, a 100 per cent increase in the retail price of the commodity over the immediately preceding 12 months or the average retail price of the last five years, whichever is lower, will be the trigger for invoking the stock limit for such commodities.
For non-perishable agricultural foodstuffs, the price trigger will be a 50 per cent increase in the retail price of the commodity over the immediately preceding 12 months or the average retail price of the last five years, whichever is lower.
The essential Commodities Act 2020 removed cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities.

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