The Essential Commodities Act, 1955, as amended in 2020, has diluted the State's ability to intervene in food price management. Do you agree? Examine with reference to recent episodes of vegetable price spikes.

Q. The Essential Commodities Act, 1955, as amended in 2020, has diluted the State's ability to intervene in food price management. Do you agree? (15 marks, 250-350 words)

The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 sought to deregulate cereals, pulses, oilseeds, onion and potato, permitting stock limits only under "extraordinary circumstances" such as war, famine or an extraordinary price rise [1]. However, the premise holds only partially and, more importantly, only historically — the amendment was repealed by the Farm Laws Repeal Act, 2021 [2].

Grounds on which dilution is argued

• High statutory triggers: stock limits required a 100% rise in retail price of horticultural produce and 50% for non-perishable food items, measured against the price twelve months earlier or the five-year average, whichever is lower [1]. Vegetable spikes rarely cross this bar quickly enough for timely action.
• Exemptions for value chains: processors and exporters holding stock within installed capacity or export demand were kept outside stock limits, narrowing enforcement against hoarding [1].
• Federal concern: as trade in foodstuffs falls in the Concurrent List, States saw their residual regulatory space compressed.

Why the dilution thesis does not hold today

• Repeal restored the 1955 framework: the Farm Laws Repeal Act, 2021 (30 November 2021) repealed the 2020 amendment in full [2], reviving the Centre's unrestricted power to impose stock limits.
• Demonstrated use: stock limits on tur and urad were imposed from 2 June 2023 and repeatedly extended and tightened, backed by a weekly stock-disclosure portal [3].
• Non-ECA tools matter more for vegetables: the Price Stabilisation Fund enables buffer procurement of onion, potato and tomato with calibrated market release [4], supplemented by subsidised retail sales through NCCF/NAFED vans during spikes [5].
• Limits of law: the 48.4% year-on-year tomato inflation in May 2026 [6] was supply- and weather-driven — no stock control can substitute for cold chains and market infrastructure.

Thus, the dilution was real in design but short-lived in effect; the State retains full legal capacity. The durable answer lies less in coercive stock control and more in strengthening buffer operations, storage and horticultural supply chains, so that price stability under the flexible inflation targeting framework rests on supply resilience rather than emergency powers.

(~340 words)

Sources: 1. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 — PRS Legislative Research — deregulation of specified foodstuffs, 100%/50% price triggers, processor and exporter exemptions 2. The Farm Laws Repeal Act, 2021 (Act No. 40 of 2021) — India Code — repeal of the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 on 30 November 2021 3. Centre imposes stock limits on Tur and Urad dal — PIB, Department of Consumer Affairs — stock limits effective 2 June 2023 and stock-disclosure portal monitoring 4. Year-End Review 2024, Department of Consumer Affairs — PIB — Price Stabilisation Fund buffer procurement and market intervention for onion, potato and tomato 5. Mobile vans selling onion at Rs 35 per kg flagged off — PIB — subsidised retail disposal through cooperative agencies during price spikes 6. Food prices take retail inflation to 3.9% in May — The Hindu, 13 June 2026 — tomato inflation at 48.4% year-on-year in May 2026