Ahead of the chief ministers meet on food prices slated for Saturday, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday apprised the Prime Minister on the steps taken to control food prices. The meeting was also attended by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
According to sources, the agriculture minister also laid down the various measures that states need to take to bring down prices. The meeting also discussed the preparedness of various departments to face queries from states.
India?s food inflation for the week ended January 16, 2010 rose to 17.40% from 16.81% for the previous week. The index had declined for three previous weeks.
The data showed that while grain prices remained at the existing level, food price inflation increased because of costlier vegetables, spices and poultry products.
Cereal prices have jumped by 46.87% over the corresponding period last year. High food prices have driven up the wholesale price index based inflation to 7.31% in December from 4.78% in November, with the government expecting it to touch 9% or even go beyond by the end of this financial year.
The issue has become a bone of contention between the central government and states, with some states blaming the central government and its policies for the rise in food prices.
Earlier this week addressing a meeting of state chief secretaries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said states must forge strategies to boost food production and tackle shortages in essential supplies.
?There are many institutions at your command and it is expected that you should not be found wanting in their judicious use. On behalf of the Centre, I would reaffirm our commitment to assist states in every way we can,? the Prime Minister said.
Last month, the central government announced a series of measures to control food prices.
It allocated additional foodgrains from the central pool to be supplied directly to consumers and relaxed the norms for processing of raw sugar and allowed duty-free import of white sugar till December. Other decisions like selling of 2-3 million tonne of wheat and rice in the open market over the next two months and asking state-owned trading firms to intensify pulses import were also announced.
The government also decided to rope in co-operative major Nafed and National Consumer Co-operative Federation (NCCF) to distribute wheat, rice, pulses and edible oils through their outlets. It relaxed the Central Excise Rule to enable the mills of Uttar Pradesh to process imported raw sugar in other states, to check rising sugar prices.