Question : Price Rise of Essential Commodities

(a) whether despite efforts being made by the Government to control prices of essential commodities including sugar, edible oils, foodgrains and vegetables, the price of these commodities are continuously increasing which is creating a big gap between the rates of price increase and per-capita income, if so, the details of prices of essential commodities including foodgrains, edible oil, sugar and vegetables during the last three years in the open market;
(b) whether the Government proposes to take necessary steps to provide more power to the price monitoring regulatory authority to improve the availability of essential commodities and to control their prices;
(c) whether it is true that the prices of essential food items are rising continuously due to which common consumers are not able to buy food items in adequate quantity;
(d) the retail inflation in the month of December, 2017 and the extent to which it has successfully been reduced at present, the details thereof; and
(e) the steps taken/being taken to check the price rise?

THE MINISTER OF STATE
CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD AND PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
(SHRI C. R. CHAUDHARY)

(a) : Details are at Annexure.

(b) : The price trends and availability of select essential food items are monitored on regular basis at the highest levels, including by Committee of Secretaries, Inter Ministerial Committee etc. for appropriate policy intervention.
(c) : Prices are determined by various factors such as demand-supply mismatch, weather conditions affecting production and availability, seasonal fluctuations in market arrivals, increase in transportation costs, supply chain constraints, etc. As on 28.02.2018, the all India daily average retail prices as reported by State Food Civil Supplies Departments were lower for some of the food items like sugar, groundnut oil, mustard oil, sunflower oil compared to the prices year ago while it was higher for some other items like rice, wheat, vanaspati oil, soya oil, palm oil, potato, onion and tomato.




(d) : All India inflation rate(%) based on Consumer Price Index(CPI) and Consumer Food Price Index(CFPI), brought out by M/o Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) are as under:
Base 2012=100
Month & Year CPI CFPI
November, 2017 4.88 4.35
December, 2017 5.21 4.96
January, 2018 (P) 5.07 4.70
(P): Provisional

(e) : Government has taken various measures from time to time to stabilize prices of essential food items which, inter-alia, include appropriately utilizing trade and fiscal policy instruments like import and export duty, Minimum Export Price, export restrictions, etc. to regulate domestic availability and moderate prices; imposition of stock limits; and, provision of higher Minimum Support Prices to incentivize farmers for increasing production. Government is implementing Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), for production and productivity improvement of horticulture crops including fruits and vegetables through various interventions. Besides, Government is also implementing Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) scheme to help moderate the volatility in prices of agri-horticultural commodities like onion, potato and pulses.

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