Maharashtra government has decided to set up its own fund on the lines of Price Stabilisation Fund of the Centre to support market interventions for controlling prices of essential commodities.
The objective is to ensure that requirements for all future interventions can be decided and met at the state level itself.
The Centre's Department of Agriculture and Cooperation has approved the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) as a Central Sector Scheme with a corpus of Rs 500 crore to support market interventions for price control of perishable agri-horticultural commodities.
This (Central) PSF will be used to advance interest-free loans to state governments and Central agencies to support their working capital and other expenses on procurement and distribution interventions for such commodities.
Maharashtra Food and Civil Supplies Minister Girish Bapat said under the PSF scheme, the states have been asked to set up a fund of their own too, to which Centre and the state will contribute equally.
Procurement of these commodities will be undertaken directly from farmers or farmers' organisations at farm gate/mandi and they would be made available at a more reasonable price to the consumers. Initially the Central PSF is proposed to be used only for onion and potato.
Bapat said his department is also studying how much hoarding of essential commodities by the traders can be allowed.
