Facing mounting criticism on rising food and fuel prices, the BJP fielded cabinet minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday to counter them.
Goyal said that globally, oil prices are at an all time high due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the pandemic, affecting price rise domestically. Price rise in food items, he said, is due to global reasons which has pushed up inflation everywhere.
He assured that the government is taking ample measures to control it. This includes removing duties on imports of essential items such as pulses.
He said that under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, free ration reaches out to 80 crore people, and added that the scheme saw through the pandemic and households of beneficiaries did not suffer from lack of food during the pandemic in the last two years.
“Under the One Nation One Ration Card vision of PM Modi, we started the process of connecting 80 crore beneficiaries of the country with technology to provide them the facility to get food anywhere in the country. More than 60 crore beneficiaries have availed ration in other parts of the country due to this,” Goyal said.
He said that adequate amounts of grains are available. “We have total food security, PM Modi has even offered to supply from our domestic stock to the world if the WTO needs it. The demand for food grains from other countries that India is receiving is historic and beyond imagination,” Goyal said.
Goyal said that the amount of wheat exported from India in the last few weeks was somewhere between 20-30 lakh tonnes and a contract for the export of 30-35 lakh tonnes of wheat for the quarter between April and June. He said that wheat export jumped from two lakh tonnes to 20 lakh tonnes and then on to 70 lakh tonnes in the last fiscal. He said it is estimated to be over 100 lakh tonnes in this fiscal.
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