The new year: The government is taking more measures to curb the rise in prices of food items and to increase their availability. The government has decided to ban the export of onions.
It has also barred sugar mills and distilleries from using sugarcane juice or syrup for ethanol production for 2023-24. This decision has been taken by the Modi government at the Centre.
Apart from this, the central government is also expected to give approval to the Food Corporation of India to sell 4 lakh tonnes of wheat per week instead of the current 3 lakh tonnes. Recently, due to the reduction in food prices, the rate of inflation has come down to below 5% in 4 months and the government has taken this step.
Earlier, the central government had fixed the minimum export price of onion at $800 per tonne to ban shipments from outside. Apart from this, the central government had also banned the export of sugar to maintain its availability in the domestic market.
With this, it has been told in the report that even after the implementation of the minimum export price, more than 1 lakh tonnes of onion has been exported last month. Due to less harvesting of Kharif crop and decreasing stock of Rabi crop, the price of onion has reached Rs 60 per kg.
After this incident, the officials have informed that in such a situation, the export of 1 lakh tonnes of onion can have an impact on the domestic prices of onion. Sources said the government has moved to ban the use of sugarcane juice for ethanol with immediate effect in view of the shortfall in the total estimated production of sugar this year
