Nafed Director Ashok Thakur has lambasted Congress and AAP govts for making the middleman rich at the cost of aam admi in the wake of Niti Aayog report. An estimate made by the government’s policy think-tank showed that the traders made Rs 8,000 crore from the recent onion crisis by artificially raising the prices.
This is the price consumers were forced to pay to traders and middlemen this year, said sources.Officials from the ministries of agriculture, consumer affairs and commerce, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), Nafed, and the Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) participated in the discussions.
Talking to Indian Cooperative Ashok Thakur said that the Congress govt has in past laid down policies aimed at benefiting the traders. AAP is following in its foot-steps and despite repeated warning from Nafed it did not mend ways and allowed the vulnerable population to be cheated.
Earlier, Thakur has laid the blame on the Kejriwal govt for the skyrocketing prices of lentils in the country’s capital. Nafed director said the Kejriwal govt. is unnecessarily criticizing the center to hide its own weaknesses.
Mr. Thakur has said in a press release Nafed had already warned the Delhi govt of the possibility of a rise in prices of lentils and suggested necessary steps to be taken but the Delhi govt put in no efforts in this direction.
Nafed had written four times to the Delhi govt. between April 8 and June 30 asking to them to stock enough lentils in view of the problem but they cynically chose to ignore Nafed’s warning.