New Delhi :Average price of wheat flour rose by 31 per cent and mustard oil by 71 per cent between 2018 and 2022, the government told the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

In a written reply, the government shared the average retail prices of about two dozen essential commodities.

According to the data, wheat prices rose by 25 per cent since 2018 while the rates of rice increased by 23 per cent in the last five years.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti shared the “year-wise all-India average retail prices of 22 commodities, including atta (wheat flour), rice, onion and potato for the last five years”.

The minister noted that the government takes various measures from time to time to augment domestic availability and stabilise the prices of essential food commodities.

“These steps, inter-alia, include releases from the buffer to cool down prices, imposition of stock limits, monitoring of stocks declared by entities to prevent hoarding as also requisite changes in trade policy instruments like rationalisation of import duty, changes in import quota, restrictions on exports of the commodity etc,” she said.

As per the data, the average retail prices of rice across major cities in India rose to Rs 37.03 per kg in 2022 as against Rs 30.05 per kg in 2018.

Between 2018 and 2022, wheat prices have increased to Rs 30.15 per kg from 24.2 per kg, while atta rates soared to Rs 34.5 per kg from 26.43 per kg.

“The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has triggered turbulence in the global economy and led to upward pressure on retail price inflation, especially for cereals.

“The prices of wheat have increased as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporter of wheat worldwide. With the war situation and less availability of wheat in world market, wheat demand increased substantially, leading to increase in domestic prices of wheat and atta,” the minister said.

The government banned wheat exports in May last year. It recently decided to offload 30 lakh tonnes of wheat under Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) and sales to State Governments, Kendriya Bhandar, National Consumer Cooperative Federation (NCCF), NAFED, State Cooperatives/Federations etc to cool down the prices of wheat and atta (wheat flour), she said.

According to the data, in the pulses category, the average rates of gram dal rose to Rs 73.66 per kg in 2022 from Rs 66.47 per kg during 2018 while the prices of tur (arahar) dal increased to Rs 107.29 per kg from Rs 71.07 per kg.

Urad dal rates went up to Rs 106.57 per kg from Rs 70.83 per kg. The rates of moong dal increased to Rs 102.63 per kg from 73.46 per kg, while the prices of masoor dal grew to Rs 96.21 per kg from 61.29 per kg.

PTI

Press Trust of India