New Delhi, June 28 : Anxious about maintaining availability of essential commodities at stable prices, the fourth National Consultation of State Ministers of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs convened by the Centre here on Friday will discuss measures required to maintain and manage prices of essential food items through policy intervention.
The meeting to be chaired by Union Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Ram Vilas Paswan will focus on the availability of robust and regular price information mechanism through strengthened price reporting centres that put out prices of 22 essential food items daily, Ministry sources said here on Thursday.
For this, the Price Stabilisation Fund is an instrument for intervention in the market. The meeting will ensure that state-level funds are set up to meet any situation in a de-centralised manner.
According to Ministry sources, other issues to be discussed will include enforcement of the Essential Commodities Act and Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, modernization and reform of the State Legal Metrology Departments for effective implementation of the Legal Metrology Act and Rules.
The meeting will also address the concerns raised by the three-member committee of the Supreme Court for facilitating the functioning of State Consumer Commissions and Consumer fora and the integration of Bureau of Indian Standards National Building Code.
The meeting will review the setting up of grievance redress and monitoring mechanism in states for implementation of the National Food Security Act.
The progress made by states on the end-to-end computerisation of the targeted Public Distribution Scheme including Aadhar seeding and installation of e-Pos devices at fair price shops for authentication of beneficiaries will also be reviewed.
The meeting will also seek from states the quota of foodgrains required for distribution in Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe hostels.
UNI.
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