The Department of Consumer Affairs under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution is monitoring the retail and wholesale prices of 22 essential food commodities.
This is being achieved through various effective policy measures by the department such as curbing black marketing, increasing the availability by restricting the export and encouraging imports, building buffer stocks, and ensuring timely release to ease abnormal price escalations.
In this connection, it was essential to tap the data of pulses available in the open market. Therefore, with the approval of the Hon’ble Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal, the department put in place a portal to encourage various stockholders like stockists, millers, importers, and dealers to enter the stocks they are holding on any given date.
The Ministry had asked the stockholders to register themselves with the portal so as to have data of pulses available in the open market.
“Stock declaration through traders, millers, importers, and warehouses which are both public and privately owned would create a data bank,” said a senior officer of the Consumer Affairs Ministry.
“This would enable the government to know the production of the states, stock availability. It will also help to keep a check on undesirable practices of hoarding and artificial scarcity creation through stock declaration and real-time verification of the same,” the officer said.
The portal – https://fcainfoweb.nic.in/psp – can also be accessed by any citizen. Stakeholders can register in the portal and create user id and passwords after verification of email and mobile through OTPs.
After the creation of the user id and password, they share information in their profile by adding their details and geographic information and submit the variety of pulses they are having in their stock on any given date.
It is the responsibility of the stakeholders to keep updating the data whenever there is an addition or subtraction in the stock, the Ministry said.