Onion prices shot up due to wrong policies of Centre: Pradhyuman
   Date :09-Jan-2020

Onion prices shot up due
 Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Pradhyuman Singh Tomar addressing a press conference in State capital on Wednesday.
 
Staff Reporter :
 
It is due to the wrong policies of Centre that onion prices soared to highest level in history. Congress government led by Kamal Nath tried hard to keep onion prices in check and they remain less in comparison to other states, said Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Pradhyuman Singh Tomar. Addressing the press conference, Pradhyuman Singh Tomar accused Modi government of being anti-farmer by alleging that when farmers’ onion is about to hit the markets, Centre is importing onion in huge quantity. He also charged Union Government of not lifting entire purchased wheat and other grains, hence adding burden on state government. While rolling out the last year achievements of his department, he told that 955 paddy procurement centres are opened and 78 per cent purchased paddy has been transported by his department.
 
He informed that under targeted public distribution system, portability facility was introduced from October 2019. Under this facility, 2.18 lakh families have taken ration from other fair price shops by December 2019. Under one nation one card scheme, Union Government has introduced inter state portability from January of this year. Now consumers of Madhya Pradesh will be able to take their ration from 11 states of country including Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura. The beneficiaries of these aforesaid states would be also able to take their ration in Madhya Pradesh. Aadhaar based ration distribution facility was started first in Dewas in June last year and by October 2019, this facility covered all districts of state.
 
Talking about verification programme of beneficiaries of eligible families, he told that 37 per cent families have been verified. He also informed about random inspection of fair price shops. As far as procurement is concerned then in rabi season 2019-20, total 73,69,550 tonne wheat was purchased and it was 53508 MT more than the previous year. The total amount of procured wheat, Rs 13560 crore was given to 987258 farmers and it was Rs 867 cr more than the corresponding year. He also said that all the pending probe in various scams happened in past government would be completed shortly and action would be taken.