IAS Gyan

Daily News Analysis

Measures taken to curb food inflation

11th August, 2021 Economy

    Context:

    • Recently, government has highlighted the steps taken to curb food inflation in parliament.

    Steps taken:

    • Buffer stock of pulses have been used to tackle price volatility of these commodities. Pulses from the buffer were used very effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic for supplying @ 1 kg per household per month free of cost to approx. 19 crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiary households between April and November 2020.
    • Government imposed stock limits on some pulses under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 in July 2021, which has had a salutary effect in terms of softening of prices.
    • Government eased import restrictions to enhance domestic availability of Tur, Urad and Moong and have also entered into MoUs with Myanmar, Malawi, Mozambique for pulses import.
    • Basic import duty and Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess on Masur have been brought down to zero and 10% respectively.
    • steps were taken to soften the prices of edible oils and the duty on Crude Palm Oil (CPO) has been cut, bringing down the effective tax rate on CPO to 30.25% from the earlier 35.75%.