Average price of wheat flour rose by 31% in 2018-22 period: Centre

Average price of wheat flour rose by 31 per cent and mustard oil by 71 per cent between 2018 and 2022, the government told the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

In a written reply, the government shared the average retail prices of about two dozen essential commodities.

According to the data, wheat prices rose by 25 per cent since 2018 while the rates of rice increased by 23 per cent in the last five years.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti shared the "year-wise all-India average retail prices of 22 commodities, including atta (wheat flour), rice, onion and potato for the last five years".

 

The minister noted that the government takes various measures from time to time to augment domestic availability and stabilise the prices of essential food commodities.

"These steps, inter-alia, include releases from the buffer to cool down prices, imposition of stock limits, monitoring of stocks declared by entities to prevent hoarding as also requisite changes in trade policy instruments like rationalisation of import duty, changes in import quota, restrictions on exports of the commodity etc," she said.

As per the data, the average retail prices of rice across major cities in India rose to Rs 37.03 per kg in 2022 as against Rs 30.05 per kg in 2018.

Between 2018 and 2022, wheat prices have increased to Rs 30.15 per kg from 24.2 per kg, while atta rates soared to Rs 34.5 per kg from 26.43 per kg.

"The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has triggered turbulence in the global economy and led to upward pressure on retail price inflation, especially for cereals.

"The prices of wheat have increased as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporter of wheat worldwide. With the war situation and less availability of wheat in world market, wheat demand increased substantially, leading to increase in domestic prices of wheat and atta," the minister said.

The government banned wheat exports in May last year. It recently decided to offload 30 lakh tonnes of wheat under Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) and sales to State Governments, Kendriya Bhandar, National Consumer Cooperative Federation (NCCF), NAFED, State Cooperatives/Federations etc to cool down the prices of wheat and atta (wheat flour), she said.

According to the data, in the pulses category, the average rates of gram dal rose to Rs 73.66 per kg in 2022 from Rs 66.47 per kg during 2018 while the prices of tur (arahar) dal increased to Rs 107.29 per kg from Rs 71.07 per kg.

Urad dal rates went up to Rs 106.57 per kg from Rs 70.83 per kg. The rates of moong dal increased to Rs 102.63 per kg from 73.46 per kg, while the prices of masoor dal grew to Rs 96.21 per kg from 61.29 per kg.

In edible (cooking) oils category, the rates of groundnut oil rose to Rs 189.24 per kg in 2022 from Rs 125.79 per kg in 2018.

Mustard oil prices surged to Rs 181.98 per kg from Rs 106.16 per kg while the average rates of vanaspati went up to Rs 150.24 per kg from Rs 80.32 per kg and soyabean oil to Rs 158.41 per kg from Rs 89.34 per kg.

The average prices of sunflower oil increased to Rs 178.2 per kg from Rs 96.28 per kg and that of palm oil to Rs 134.83 per kg from Rs 76.68 per kg.

"To control the prices of edible oil, the government reduced the basic import duty on crude palm oil, crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil to zero and agri-cess on these oils has been brought down to 5 per cent.

"The basic duty on refined soyabean oil and refined sunflower oil has been reduced to 17.5 per cent from the previous rate of 32.5 per cent and the basic duty on refined palm oils has been reduced from 17.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent. The government has also kept the import of refined palm oils under 'Free' category," the minister said.

Among vegetables, the average prices of potato stood at Rs 25.2 per kg in 2022 as against Rs 19.02 per kg during 2018. Onion rates inched up to Rs 28 per kg from Rs 23.64 per kg while tomato prices shot up to Rs 36.61 per kg from Rs 21.82 per kg.

The government data showed that sugar prices increased slightly to Rs 41.87 per kg from Rs 38.92 per kg while the rates of gur rose to Rs 49.31 per kg from Rs 43.11 per kg.

Milk prices increased to Rs 52.81 per litre last year from Rs 42.31 per litre in 2018.

Tea prices rose to Rs 282.48 per kg from Rs 209.19 per kg.

Lastly, the average salt prices too increased to Rs 20.25 per kg in 2022 from Rs 15.22 per kg during 2018.

The department of consumer affairs department monitors price for 22 essential commodities based on data collected from 340 market centres spread across the country representing North, West, East, South and North-eastern regions of the country.