Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Price Stablisation Fund to regulate price volatility of onion and potato

A new initiative taken by the Government is the setting up of Price Stablisation Fund (PSF) a Central Sector Scheme, being implemented by the Department of Agriculture & Co-operation (DAC) with a corpus of Rs.500 crore. The scheme is expected to help in regulating price volatility of agricultural and horticultural commodities both when there is price rise or vice-versa. Initially the support is for procurement of onion and potato only. 

The Government closely monitors the wholesale/retail prices of 22 select essential commodities based on information received from 68 reporting centres across the country. 

There is a Committee of Secretaries (CoS) on Prices set up by the Cabinet Secretariat to review the prices of essential items, and to suggest possible policy interventions for implementation.