Price Monitoring Division

• Prices of 16 more food items, including eggs, millets may be tracked by PMD due to the recent rise in retail prices of several essential commodities.
• Currently, PMD tracks the daily prices of 22 commodities (Rice, Wheat, Atta, Gram Dal, Tur (Arhar) Dal, Urad Dal , Moong Dal, Masur Dal, Sugar, Gur, Groundnut Oil, Mustard Oil, Vanaspati, Sunflower Oil, Soya Oil, Palm Oil, Tea, Milk, Potato, Onion, Tomato and Salt) based on data collected from 505 market centres spread across the country representing North, West, East, South and North-eastern regions of the country.
• Benefit- It will help policy planners and institutions, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), improve the quality of decision-making as it will reduce the dependence on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which comes with a lag of one month.

ABOUT PRICE MONITORING DIVISION

• PMD is under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution.
• It monitors the retail and wholesale prices, and spot and future prices of selected essential commodities on a daily basis.
• In the event of shortage of any specific essential commodity and to keep price of the item under control, Price Monitoring Division also implements commodity-specific market intervention schemes to give temporary relief to the consumers.