Hoarding tur, oilseeds akin to an 'act of terror'

PUNE|MUMBAI: Maharashtra has threatened to slap Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act ( MCOCA) and Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act (MPDA) on hoarders of pulses and oilseeds while onion farmers and traders complain of thefts as prices of these commodities remain high.

Maharashtra food and civil supplies minister Girish Bapat on Tuesday said the state was planning to use MCOCA and MPDA, originally meant to combat terrorism and the underworld, against hoarders, prompting India Pulses and Grains Association (IPGA) chairman Pravin Dongre to say millers, traders and importers could not be "treated as criminals".




Experts and government officials agreed these laws are unlikely to be used against traders. "These laws are not related to the field and may be difficult to invoke," a high level official said. But the state government has moved its entire machinery, including the police, to crack down on hoarding of pulses and oilseeds in the state under the Essential Commodities Act.

Deepak Kapoor, Maharashtra food, civil supplies and consumer affairs secretary, said the state authorities confiscat ed 23,342 metric tonnes of pulses from 276 raids carried out on Monday and Tuesday Of this, 22,340 mt have been seized from Mumbai, Thane and Raigad. "The raids will continue and we will not allow hoarding to take place as the entire state machinery is working to stop it," said Ka poor. He cited the fall in whole sale prices of tur at the Mum bai APMC as a direct result of the government action.

He clarified that importers exporters, processor and big re tail chains are included in the stock limit order of the state He said it will take a few weeks for the confiscated pulses to come into the market.

Importers, who clarified that the authorities raided some of their warehouses, urged the government to exclude them from the stock limit because it will only worsen supply situa tion. "All we are asking from the government is to lift the limit order on importers, as this will choke the vital supply line and cause the situation to worsen," said Bimal Kothari vice chairman of IPGA.

Dongre of IPGA said he expected prices of pulses to correct by around 10% in the next 15 days as 2.5 lakh tonnes of supplies were lined up in ships outside Mumbai port. But, he added, these supplies would be constricted unless the government exempted importers from the 350 tonnes stock limit norm. "Each carrier can carry 50,000 tonnes. But they haven't begun offloading because of the stock limit," he said.

The importers also claimed that they may have to cancel their shipments if the stock limit is not lifted.

Huseyin Arslan, president of Global Pulses Federation, said the panic reaction of imposing stock limits on imports was resulting in a few Indian traders cancelling their contracts with international suppliers.

Meanwhile, onion farmers and traders say the bulb is now on the radar of thieves, with a couple of cases reaching the police. "A few farmers lost up to 2 tonne onions from their storage, when prices were at Rs 50kg, amounting to a loss of Rs 1 lakh," said Ajay Nerkar, an onion trader from Satana taluka of Nashik district.

Nanasaheb Patil, chairman of Lasalgaon APMC, said there have been innumerable small scale thefts of a few quintal onions that did not end up being registered with the police. "For petty thieves, it earned Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. If we try to arrive at the total amount of theft, it would be huge," said Patil. The IPGA has also offered to supply tur and masoor at lower than the prevailing market rates to the government for distributing through its public distribution system (PDS).

"IPGA will supply 100 tonnes each of processed tur at Rs 135 a kg and masoor at Rs 80 a kg daily to the government, either central or state, for distribution to BPL families," said Dongre.According to IPGA, India consumes about 6,000 tonne of pulses a day , of which tur and masoor account for around 30% or 1,800 tonnes. The offer of IPGA will meet just 5% of the demand.