<span style="color: #222222;">The centre is monitoring the wholesale and retail prices of 22 essential food commodities on daily basis from 179 price monitoring centres set up by the State Governments and Union Territories Administrations. Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Ashwini Kumar Choubey said this in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today. The daily prices and price trends are analysed on a real-time basis for requisite policy interventions. He said various measures are taken from time to time by Government to augment domestic availability and stabilize prices of essential food commodities. These steps include releases from the buffer to cool down prices, imposition of stock limits and monitoring of stocks declared by entities to prevent hoarding.</span>