CRACKDOWN ON HOARDERS

With spiralling inflation, the Centre today asked the states to crack down on hoarders while unveiling a series of measures to check prices of cereals, fruits and vegetables and slapping restrictions on potato and onion exports. The host of measures to tame inflation, which had soared to a five-month high of 6.01 per cent in May, was taken at a high-level meeting of Ministers and Secretaries called by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Among other measures, the Centre asked the states to delist fruits and vegetables from the Agricultural Produce Market Committee list, allowing farmers to sell their produce directly in the open market, and imposed a minimum export price of USD 300 per tonne on onions to curb their exports. The Commerce Ministry has been asked to come out with a similar measure for potatoes. The government has also decided to release an additional 50 lakh tonnes of rice to states for sale in the open market at APL (above poverty line) rate of Rs 8.30 per kg and allowed states to directly import pulses and edible oils to meet shortages. The meeting to discuss steps to deal with the price rise was attended by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Food Minister Ramvilas Paswan, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and top officials including Nripendra Misra, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "There are 22 commodities which are under active observation of the government," Jaitley said, adding that a rise in prices has been noticed in 4-5 commodities. "The steps include advising the states where we have seen tendency of hoarding, particularly in anticipation of weak monsoon, to crack down on hoarders. "...even though the increase has only been marginal, we don't want anybody to exploit the situation and therefore in anticipation of any further market reaction, a series of steps have been decided and they are being put in place," Jaitley told reporters after the meeting.