In a bid to tame the double digit inflation in rice, the government will now be selling rice under the Bharat brand at Rs 25 a kilo, said a senior government official.
This will be sold through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed), National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (NCCF) and Kendriya Bhandar outlets.
The government already sells atta and pulses under the brand.
Cereal prices in November rose to 10.27% pushing the food inflation to 8.70% in November, against 6.61% reported the previous month. Food inflation accounts for nearly half of the overall consumer price basket.
While the government has been able to tame rising wheat prices through increasing the amount it offloads in the open market via e-auctions done by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), the offtake of rice has been minimal.
The FCI also recently modified its OMSS rules for rice, relaxing it a bit. The minimum and maximum quantity of rice that a bidder can bid has been fixed to 1 MT and 2000 MT respectively.
This step has been taken to enhance the sale of rice under OMSS to increase the supply of the grain in the market.
Source Name : Economic Times