The government will amend the six-and-a-half-decade old Essential Commodities Act to deregulate food items, including cereals, edible oil, oilseeds, pulses, onion and potato, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.

The amendment, besides deregulating production and sale of food products, will provide for no stock limit to be imposed on any produce. A stock limit will be imposed only under very exceptional circumstances like national calamities, famine with a surge in prices.