Price stabilization fund may get 1,500 cr each in next 2 budgets

The price stabilization fund (PSF), established to build buffer stocks of farm commodities to help contain sudden rise in food prices, may get additional allocations in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 budgets of ₹1,500 crore each. The department of consumer affairs (DoCA) has placed a proposal for the allocations before the expenditure finance committee (EFC), government officials aware of the matter said.

- Puja Das

The amount of annual budgetary support required for subsequent years of 2024-25 and 2025-26 is ₹1,500 crore, considering expected annual sale proceeds of about ₹4,500 crore based on the average sale proceeds accrual to the corpus in the past three years, according to one of the officials. The sale proceeds in 2023-24 are expected to be “ ₹945 crore from Bharat Dal and ₹4,500 crore from additional procurement of onion".

For 2023-24, the budget had allocated a token ₹1 lakh for the PSF after no amount was spent in 2022-23 from its allocation of ₹1,500 crore. But last month, the DoCA proposed to the finance ministry to allocate ₹6,345 crore for 2023-24 as its revised estimate for the PSF, according to the government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. With this, the total outlay under the PSF scheme for the three years (FY24 to FY26) is expected to touch ₹9,345 crore.