Centre against bill to control prices of pulses: Congress

The state failed to control the prices of pulses last year as it was acting in the interest of the traders and a handful corporate houses.

The Congress alleged that the state was unable to introduce a bill to regulate prices of pulses because of an objection from the Centre, which claimed that it would be against the doctrines of free market economy. The state had approved the draft bill in April 2016, saying that it would be an effective way to control spiralling prices of pulses.

Sachin Sawant, Congress spokesperson, said, “The state failed to control the prices of pulses last year as it was acting in the interest of the traders and a handful corporate houses. The government announced a regulatory act, but the agriculture ministry opposed it. When we tried to inquire about it , the food and civil supplies department denied us the information under RTI.”

The food and civil supplies department, however, denied the allegation and said the bill was very much on the cards and it will the centre approves it.

“There are remarks by several departments on the draft bill and the ones made by the agriculture ministry are one of them. This does not mean that the centre is against the bill. In this case, the centre said that most of the provisions in the bill are already mentioned in the Essential Commodities Act and might overlap in the new bill. However, despite all this, it still gave us permission to bring out such a bill,” said Mahesh Pathak, principal secretary food and civil supplies