Mallika Dureja
Based on what a top official called “reliable” market intelligence and rising consumer inflation, which hit a three-month high of 6.52% in January, the central government has started cracking down on people who stockpile pulses and other farm products.
Singh told a top group in the lentil business that traders should run good businesses and make fair profits. “We agree with you on that, but if you try to play games with it, we will stop you. We get paid for doing this. “This is a friendly warning from me,” Singh said.
The government’s price-monitoring cell is using better ways to predict prices, like the root mean square error, which is a mathematical model that economists often use to measure how wrong they are when predicting quantitative data.
In January, food and drink prices went up by 6.1%, which is more than the 4.58% rise in December. Food prices have been going up every month, even though they usually go down during the winter.
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Even though cereal prices went up 16.12% in January and 13.79% in December because of shortages, official data shows that pulses are not in short supply. But inflation for pulses was 4.27 percent, up from 3.89 percent the month before.
The Centre thinks that the price of pulses should not be more than 125 per kg. The official said that rates were being tracked every day and that new information was being used.
Food prices have gone up across the board, which has hurt family budgets. Food inflation hurts poorer families more than it hurts richer families because poorer families spend a bigger share of their income on food than richer families do.
Meat and fish inflation was 6.04% in January, up from 5.13% the month before. Inflation for eggs was 8.78%, up from 6.19% the month before. Vegetable prices, on the other hand, went down.
