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Price Monitoring Division (PMD) in the Department of Consumer Affairs is responsible for monitoring prices of selected essential commodities. The activities of the division include monitoring of the retail and wholesale prices, and spot and future prices of selected essential commodities on a daily basis. Prices are reported daily on the website. Also, there is limited circulation of hard copies of the price reports to disseminate information on price situation to the policy makers on a daily basis. Price Monitoring Division analyses the price situation and gives advance feedback for taking preventive measures to help policy interventions at appropriate time to prevent undesired shortfall in the availability of essential commodities. 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 relief to the consumers.

Price is monitored for twenty two essential 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 555 market centres spread across the country representing North, West, East, South and North-eastern regions of the country. The Quality and variety of the item for which prices are reported may vary from centre to centre but remains the same for a given centre. Generally, prices are reported for the Fair Average Quality of the item for a given centre. Every centre has a standard quality and variety of item for which prices are reported by them. Data feeding network and data base of prices (daily price data) are maintained by the NIC cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs under the supervision of Price Monitoring Division.