Government intervention led to action on pulses

The Maharashtra government woke up to the problem of high prices of pulses only after governor Vidyasagar Rao’s intervention; documents available with The Asian Age reveal.

Consumer body Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP), which is investigating into how much money was made in the process, said traders earned nearly '4,000 crore through hoarding and hiking prices of pulses. Adv Shirish Deshpande, who has been raising his voice against the hike for the past three months, claimed he was ignored by CM Devendra Fadnavis and minister for food and civil supply Girish Bapat. He said there is reason to believe that prices of pulses were deliberately hiked and no action was taken against hoarders despite warnings from the Union

secretary. Documents available with this newspaper show that secretary to the Union ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution C. Viswanath intimated chief secretaries of all states through his letter dated June 10 about possible rise in pulse prices from July to November. Another letter dated July 17 from deputy secretary to the ministry of consumer affairs Surendra Singh intimated the same.

Mr Singh’s letter read thus: “Immediate necessary action is to be taken to tackle the problem of increase in food prices as may be necessary in your state especially in the ensuing six months from July to December 2015. You may activate your Price Monitoring Cell to monitor the prices of essential commodities, both wholesale prices as well as retail prices obtained in various parts of your state.”

Adv Deshpande said when prices of tur dal rose to '160 per kg, they met Mr Fadnavis and Mr Bapat and asked them to intervene. “They only assured us that they will do something within two days, but did not impose restriction on stocking the pulses till we met the governor on October 18,” he said. Adv Deshpande said it was the governor who made the government take a decision to restrict stock on October 19. Furious with the state’s apathy towards containing prices of pulses, Mr Rao took the initiative and directed the government to

impose restrictions on stocking of pulses. Raj Bhavan confirmed that the delegation of MGP met the governor on October 18 and Raj Bhavan informed the state government to take action against hoarding as demanded by MGP.