Expressing concern over price rise, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said it was mainly due to shortage of essential commodities like pulses, sugar and edible oil and suggested strengthening of the public distribution system (PDS) to provide relief to the common man. Replying to questions in the Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister said, availability of sugar is 16 million tonnes but the requirement is 23 million tonnes. Similarly availability of edible oil is 92 million tonnes while the demand is slightly over 158 million tonnes. Mr Mukherji said, pulses are produced by very few countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh and as they consume most of the produce, there is no scope of exporting pulses to other countries. He said inflation has no direct correlation with economic growth and the current situation has arisen due to genuine imbalance between demand and supply.<br/><br/>Mr. Mukherjee said the government is regularly monitoring the problem of hoarding and has been holding discussions with state governments on measures to curb it. The Minister said, more than one lakh crore rupees of food subsidy is given to rural poor to insulate them from the effects of price rise. For checking price rise, Mr Mukherjee said the government has taken measures like reducing import duties on wheat, pulses, maize and raw sugar and banned export of non-Basmati rice. <br/><br/>