Centre may ask states to take lead in hoarder hunt

The Centre might ask states to establish their own teams to conduct raids and searches on hoarders of essential commodities. The Union government has been gearing up to keep tabs on the prices of essential commodities, mainly pulses, edible oil, and sugar, that usually flare up between July and December, peak festival season.

Tamil Nadu, which has the best record in keeping tabs on hoarders and black marketeers; the state CID (Criminal Investigation Department) plays a key role here. "The mechanism might be replicated in other states, as well," a senior central government official said. The topic is a part of the agenda of a day-long deliberation by states' food and consumers affairs ministers on Saturday.

The meeting will also be attended by central food minister Ram Vilas Paswan, central agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh, and central commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman, besides senior officials of the central and state departments.

Officials said the Centre was keen to listen to the progress the states have made on preparing plans to deal with price rise. Till date, only six state and two Union Territories have given their plans to the Centre, though all had agreed to prepare plans almost a year ago. Officials said states not forthcoming in imposing stockholding limits and the low detention of hoarders and black marketeers would also be discussed.

The meeting would also discuss the progress made by states in changing their APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) rules which would ease the establishment of e-NAM (National Agriculture Market).

Eight states have changed APMC rules to ease setting up of e-NAM, launched by prime minister Narendra Modi.

On price monitoring, officials said the plan was to collect retail and wholesale prices from 100 centres across the country, up from 93 centres now.

"There is an effort to work with the states to improve price data collection mechanism," an official said. The states would be told to send the retail and wholesale price for Saturdays and Sundays as well to ensure that monitoring is proper. On the NFSA, officials said the states would be instructed to complete digitisation of ration cards fast and set-up grievance redressal mechanism as directed by the Supreme Court.

PRICE CONTROL

• Price of essential food items usually get inflated during the peak festival season of July-December
   
• States would be directed to update their plans to check prices of essential commodities
   
• Prices would be collected from 100 centres across India instead of 93
   
• Retail, wholesale price of commodities would be collected on Saturdays and Sundays, too