Government dithers on use of Price Stabilisation Fund

As the onion prices in the retail market across the State have become prohibitive for the common consumers and prices of potato are steadily increasing.

For representational purposes

BHUBANESWAR: Even as the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (FS&CW) department has gone for market intervention in a limited way to moderate onion price volatility, non-utilisation of fund meant for price stabilisation has defeated the purpose of creating a special corpus fund.

The State Government has created a corpus of Rs 100 crore under the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) to help regulate the price volatility of important agri-horticultural commodities like onion, potato and pulses.

As the onion prices in the retail market across the State have become prohibitive for the common consumers and prices of potato are steadily increasing, the Government needs to leverage the corpus fund to provide cushion to the consumers through market intervention.