\u2713Recently, the government has notified, under the Essential Commodities Act 1955, to declare ‘soya meal’ as an essential commodity up to 30th June, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713This step is expected to stop any unfair practises (like hoarding, black marketing etc) in the market having the potential to hike the prices of soya meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713This will also enhance the availability of the commodity for consumers like poultry farms and cattle feed manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Soybean meal is the most important protein source used to feed farm animals. It is also used for human consumption in some countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713It represents nearly two-thirds of the total world output of protein feedstuffs, including all other major oil meals and fish meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Soybean meal is the by-product of the extraction of soybean oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Background: The ECA Act 1955, was legislated at a time when the country was facing a scarcity of foodstuffs due to persistent low levels of foodgrains production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713The country was dependent on imports and assistance (such as wheat import form the US under PL-480) to feed the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713To prevent hoarding and black marketing of foodstuffs, the Essential Commodities Act was enacted in 1955.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713There is no specific definition of essential commodities in the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Section 2(A) states that an \u201cessential commodity\u201d means a commodity specified in the Schedule of the Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713The Act gives powers to the central government to add or remove a commodity in the Schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713The Centre, if it is satisfied that it is necessary to do so in public interest, can notify an item as essential, in consultation with state governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713The ECA 1955 is used to curb inflation by allowing the Centre to enable control by state governments of trade in a wide variety of commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, implements the Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713By declaring a commodity as essential, the government can control the production, supply, and distribution of that commodity, and impose a stock limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713The Economic Survey 2019-20 highlighted that government intervention under the ECA 1955 often distorted agricultural trade while being totally ineffective in curbing inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Such intervention does enable opportunities for rent-seeking and harassment. Rent-seeking is a term used by economists to describe unproductive income, including from corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Traders tend to buy far less than their usual capacity and farmers often suffer huge losses during surplus harvests of perishables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713This led to farmers being unable to get better prices due to lack of investment in cold storage, warehouses, processing and export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2713Owing to these issues, the Parliament passed the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020. However, due to farmers\u2019 protest the Government had to repeal this law.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u25a0 Centre declares Soya Meal as an Essential Commodity up to 30th June, 2022- \u2713Recently, the government has notified, under the Essential Commodities Act 1955, to declare ‘soya meal’ as an essential commodity up to 30th June, 2022. \u2713This step is expected to stop any unfair practises (like hoarding, black marketing etc) in the market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":894,"featured_media":66484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1755],"tags":[1797],"class_list":["post-66474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upsc-important-topics","tag-upsc-daily-important-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66485,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66474\/revisions\/66485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}