Essential Commodities Act Amendment: Govt to deregulate edible oils, pulses, onions, potato

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 15 announced that the government will amend the Essential Commodities Act. This will be done in order to enable better price realisation for farmers and to make the agriculture sector competitive.

Agriculture foodstuffs including cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onion, and potato will be deregulated. Stock limit will be imposed under very exceptional circumstances like national calamities, famine with a surge in prices, FM Sitharaman said. She added that no such stock limit shall apply to processors or value chain participants, subject to their installed capacity or to any exporter subject to the export demand.

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This act, which was enacted in 1955, was very important at the time since food shortages were common back then, the finance minister said.

Also Read | FM Nirmala Sitharaman proposes central law to enable farmers to get fair price for their crop

The announcement was made by FM Sitharaman as part of the third tranche of measures under the Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus packaged. The 11 measures detailed today were focussed on agriculture and allied sectors. While eight of these were aimed at strengthening infrastructure, capacities, storage and building better logistics, three of them were related to governance and administrative reforms.

She said a central law will also be formulated to enable farmers and ensure that they get an attractive price for their produce and a facilitative legal framework will be created to enable farmers to engage with processors, aggregators, large retailers, exporters, in a fair and transparent manner.

Also Read | FM Sitharaman announces legal framework to help farmers with prices

Date: May 19