Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Wednesday, held an inter-ministerial meeting to discuss the spiralling prices of food and carve out a strategy to cool inflation.
Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu attended the meeting. Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian was also present.
During the meeting, discussions were held to devise ways to meet the gap between demand and supply in pulses. It was decided that the process should be expedited with nations for government-to-government import of pulses to meet domestic shortage and strengthen buffer stocks.
“We are making efforts to fill the demand-supply gap through imports and local purchase. Also, we are in talks with Myanmar and other countries for government-to-government import of pulses to meet shortage,” Mr. Paswan told reporters after the meeting.
Commenting on the spike in tomato and sugar prices, Mr. Paswan told reporters that tomato prices will ease in the next 15 days, while assuring that the government will not let sugar prices to increase.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Paswan flagged off vans for selling pulses at reasonable prices in Delhi. These vans run by the National Cooperative Consumer Federation of India will sell pulses, mainly tur and urad, at Rs. 120 a kg. Outlets of Kendriya Bhandar and Safal are already selling pulses in Delhi and NCR at these rates.
