New Delhi, Sep 30 (IANS): At least 11,635 stockholders have declared holdings of 30,97,694.42 metric tonnes (MT) of pulses on the official portal of Department of Consumer Affairs as on September 20, an official statement said on Thursday.

The Department, under the Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ministry, is monitoring the retail and wholesale prices of 22 essential food commodities, through various effective policy measures such as curbing black marketing, increasing availability by restricting export and encouraging imports, building buffer stocks, and ensuring timely release to ease abnormal price escalations, the Ministry statement said.

In this connection, it was essential to tap the data of pulses available in the open market, it said, adding that with Minister Piyush Goyal's approval, the department set up a portal to encourage various stockholders like stockists, millers, importers, and dealers to enter the stocks, and variety of pulses, they are holding on any given date.

Stockholders were also made responsible for regularly updating their data.

The declarations will help to create a data bank, which will enable the government to understand which are the states that produce and stock for milling purposes. It will also help to keep a check on undesirable practices of hoarding and artificial scarcity creation through stock declaration and real time verification of the same.

The portal - https://fcainfoweb.nic.in/psp - can also be accessed by any citizen.