Concerned over the high food inflation in the country, the government has stated that it is taking various fiscal and administrative measures to bring down inflation. Minister of State for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman has asserted that the government is committed to ensuring price stability in the country and is closely monitoring the situation and taking measures on an ongoing basis to bring down inflation.
By adding further, Nirmala Sitharaman said that some of the important measures taken during the last three months to bring down inflation include reducing import duties to zero for wheat, onion and pulses and imposing stock limits on various commodities. The government has also suspended futures trading in rice, urad and tur as matter of abundant precaution, she added. Among other measures, the government recently recommended delisting of fruits and vegetables from the purview of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Acts of the states and fixing a minimum export price on onion and potato to ensure domestic supplies. The WPI inflation in food articles eased to 8.14% y-o-y in the month under review as comparison to 9.50% in the previous month.
Though, inflation has been witnessing downward trend over the past two or three months, it is still elevated above 7 percent impacting the real income and consumption power of the people. The retail inflation stood at 7.31% y-o-y in June as compared to 8.28% in the previous month.