Chennai, Jul 12 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday wrote a letter to Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public distribution, Piyush Goyal requesting him to allocate 10,000 MT of wheat and tur dal each, per month to control the spiraling prices.

The Chief Minister in his letter informed the Union minister that these would be sold through cooperatives societies to prevent the rise in prices of commodities in open market.

He also called upon the Union government to expedite its efforts to import these products as a shortage in domestic production was predicted.

Stalin also requested the Union minister to take immediate steps to help state governments in mitigating the impact on consumers as a worrying trend was being witnessed in food inflation.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in the letter said that the increase of prices of many essential commodities including wheat, rice, tur dal, urad dal and vegetables like tomatoes has burdened the middle class families and their budget has gone out of control.

He said that as per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the inflation rate for cereals and products was high at 12.65 per cent and 6.56 per cent for pulses and products during the month of May 2023.

The Chief Minister said that the state government had taken up several measures to control the spiraling prices that include supplying vegetables, foodgrains and pulses much below the open market prices through Uzhavur Sandhai’s (Farmers Markets) and through cooperative outlets.