As efforts continue to curb rising edible oil prices amid the festive season, the Centre on Monday said Uttar Pradesh has notified the stock limits for edible oils and many other states will follow suit soon.
Food Secretary Sudanshu Pandey on Monday reviewed the status of stock limits for edible oils during a virtual meeting with representatives of various states.
The Uttar Pradesh government has imposed stock limits in the range of 1-25 tonnes for different stakeholders and the same was notified on October 12.
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana are almost in the final stages of notifying the stock limits for edible oils, he said.According to Pandey, nine other states/UT have confirmed that they initiated the process of fixing stock limits. The states are Maharashtra, Odisha, Kerala, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Chandigarh.Rest of the states have also initiated the process of fixing the stock limits.
After 2018, states are imposing the stock limits on edible oils/oilseeds and that’s why it took sometime, Pandey pointed out.Noting that the meeting was very positive, the secretary said, “We hope that in the next few days, most of the states, taking the sensitivity of consumers into account, will be issuing stock limit orders and enforcing them also”.States themselves understand the importance of the subject and are therefore pursuing it very rigorously, he said.
The Centre is closely monitoring the prices of edible oils and its availability to the consumers. Various steps have already been taken by the government based on the interaction with all the states and edible oil industry associations.
