Price Monitoring Division

Price Monitoring Division (PMD) oversees the implementation of Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) under which (a) Monitoring of the daily prices of essential food commodities and (b) Price Stabilization Interventions are undertaken. Under price monitoring, the daily retail and wholesale prices of 41 essential commodities are collected from 579 price reporting centers through mobile app viz. Price Monitoring System (PMS). These daily prices constitute critical inputs to take decisions relating to market intervention, restricting import- export duties and calibrate the monetary policy for monitoring price surge. Under price stabilization intervention, government undertakes market interventions to control the volatility in prices of agri-horticultural commodities such as onion, potato, tomato and pulses to protect the interests of consumers. Market interventions primarily involves procurement of these commodities for buffer stock and undertaking strategic market disposals to contain price volatility. Buffer stocking also acts as deterrent for unscrupulous speculations. The procurement of agri-horticultural commodities ensures remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce.

Price Monitoring Division was set up in 1998 for keeping a close watch on the prices of selected food items as well as the structural and other constraints affecting their availability. This information are critical for ensuring timely intervention for improving the market availability and thereby moderating prices. Initially, PMD was tasked with monitoring prices of 14 essential food items across 18 centers in the country. Over the span of about 28 years, the coverage of commodities monitored by PMD has expanded to 41 and the number of reporting centers has increased to 579. These 41 commodities include five item groups i.e., Cereals (Rice, Broken Rice, Wheat, Atta, Jowar, Bajra, Ragi, Maida, Suji), Pulses & Products (Gram, Tur, Urad, Moong, Masur, Besan), Edible Oils & Fats (Groundnut Oil, Mustard Oil, Vanaspati, Soya Oil, Sunflower Oil, Palm Oil, Desi Ghee, Butter), Vegetables (Potato, Onion, Tomato, Brinjal, Ginger, Garlic), Animal Products (Milk, Egg), Spices (Black Pepper, Coriander, Cumin Seed, Red Chilli, Turmeric), Fruits (Banana), and Other items (Sugar, Gur, Tea, Salt).

The Retail and Wholesale prices of 41 essential food items is released daily. based on the information received from 579 centers. The price data can be accessed at Department’s web site http://fcamin.nic.in which is updated regularly. The report covers:-

• Daily All India Retail and Wholesale Average Prices of 41 essential food items comparing current prices with that of one month ago and one year ago.
• All India Average Retail and Wholesale Prices of 41 essential food items over one week

State Civil Supplies Departments of the respective State Governments

The Department developed a Mobile App. for price reporting which became operationalized from 1st January, 2021. The App has inbuilt features to calculate the average of retail prices collected from three markets and also geo-tag the location from where prices are collected and uploaded. The Mobile App is readily available for download from google play store.

The Department has institutionalized weekly interaction with market intelligence agency, Department of Agriculture, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), NAFED and NCCF, to assess market estimates of crop size, price scenario and projections, imports and overall availability situation in respect of pulses and vegetables namely, onion, potato and tomato.

Price Monitoring Division also monitors other variables at the national and global level that are likely to impact prices. National level variables that are monitored include (Wholesale Price Index, Consumer Price Index, Prices of major vegetables in India, Minimum Support Price, Prices of food and non-food items in India, Production of major crops), Crop area under various crops, Stocks of essential commodities , Government Procurement of Essential Commodities, Global level variables that are monitored include:  International Food Price Index, Consumer Price indices of different countries, Data on trade and commodity prices.

b.1    The Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) was set up in 2014-15 to tackle inflationary trends in some agri-horticultural commodities viz. onion, potatoes and pulses to protect the consumers from volatility in prices of agri- horticultural commodities and to make essential food commodities available at reasonable prices.

b.2    The PSF Scheme is under the Umbrella Scheme of PA-AASHA : The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the continuation of schemes of Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay SanraksHan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA) on 18.9.2024 to provide remunerative prices to farmers and to control price volatility of essential commodities for consumers.

b.3          Under the PSF scheme, strategic buffer stock of pulses and onion are maintained by procuring from domestic as well as imported sources for calibrated release to discourage hoarding, unscrupulous speculation and for supplies to consumers at reasonable prices.

b.4          Interest free advances from the PSF corpus may be made both to Central Agencies and to State level Corpus. The State level Corpus is created with a sharing pattern between GoI and State in the ratio of 50: 50, which is 75:25 in case the North Eastern States. In the States/UTs, the price stabilization operations are to be managed by the State level PSFMC and operated out of the State level Corpus Fund.

   Buffer Stock of pulses:

b.5          Calibrated release of pulses through PSF Buffer are done to keep the prices of pulses stable for the benefit of consumer. DoCA keeps a close watch on market through its Price Monitoring Division. PMD intimates any abnormal rise in prices of pulses to the higher Authority. Also, there are several oversight mechanisms like IMC, GoM, CoS, CoM etc regarding “Review of Prices of Essential Commodities” through which Government keep close watch on prices of pulses.

b.6          Re-building buffer stock of pulses: Government has decided that procurement at MSP would be under PSS of DA&FW and requirement towards building suitable buffer would be met from the PSS stock in case procurement is not required to be undertaken under PSF. Pulses procured under Price Support Scheme (PSS) of Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) have been channelized to PSF to the extent of meeting buffer requirements. This has ensured effective utilisation of PSS stocks towards stabilization efforts as calibrated releases are made from PSF. Thus, harmonization between PSS and PSF has been achieved with remunerative prices being assured to farmers and intervention on the supply side is undertaken to manage their prices in consumer interest.

b.7        Utilization of buffer stock of pulses: Government has taken a decision that all Ministries/Department having schemes with nutrition component or providing food/ catering/hospitality services would utilize pulses from the central buffer. Pulses from the buffer has been utilised for PDS distribution, in Mid-day Meal Scheme and ICDS Scheme. In addition, pulses from the buffer are being utilized to meet the requirement of Army and Central Para-Military Forces. The balance stock is disposed in market, based on considerations like shelf life, efficient buffer management, market prices etc. Pulses from the buffer were also utilised for distribution of free pulses under the PMGKAY and ANB packages.

b.8         Pulses Buffer target :

Onion

b.9       Procurement of onions under PSF for controlling price volatility were initiated from 2017-18, with small quantities being procured at the beginning which was substantially enhanced to 6.46 LMT in 2023-24.

b.10     In Rabi onion disposal operation 2024-25, for the first time, onions from Nashik was transported by rail (Kanda Express) to major destinations like Delhi, Chennai, Lucknow, Guwahati and Kolkata making disposal cost-effective and efficient. Transportation of onions by rail was scaled up in 2025–26, with approximately 85,000 MT of onions transported through 86 rakes to around 16 major consumption centres.

Tomato

b.11  The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) also undertakes targeted market interventions to moderate sharp increases in tomato prices and ensure availability at affordable rates. Through the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF), the Department facilitates the procurement of tomatoes from producing mandis and their simultaneous release in major consumption centres experiencing high retail prices, through agencies such as the NCCF.

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Action

Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) Guidelines

State-level Price Stabilization Fund (SLPSF) Guidelines

Instructions regarding implementation of Price Stabilization Fund Scheme (PSF) of the Department of Consumer Affairs –reg

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