A high-level inter-ministerial meeting headed by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday (11 July), decided to increase the buffer stock for pulses to 20 lakh tonne, from eight lakh tonnes.
The inter-ministerial meeting was also attended by Union minister for food, consumer affairs and public distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan and Union minister for urban development and information and broadcasting, Venkaiah Naidu.
In June, the buffer stock, created a year ago, had been enhanced to eight lakh tonne from 3.5 lakh tonne. That decision too, had been taken at an inter-ministerial meeting headed by the Union finance minister. An abysmal shortage of pulses, the primary source of protein for many Indians − particularly vegetarians, had led to a runaway increase in prices of the ‘dals’ over the last year, but particularly in the last five months.
Prices of staple ‘dals’ like ‘arhar’ or ‘tur’, gram (chana dal), black lentils (urad) and lentils (masur) cooled over the last few weeks, because of imports from pulses producing countries. A perennial shortage of pulses persists in India, though, because of the gargantuan gap between production (a little more than 17 million tonnes in 2015-16) and consumption (over 23 million tonnes).
The ministers attending Monday’s meeting were informed that this year, the production of pulses would increase to 200 lakh tonne (20 million tonne) and ensure a significant increase in the availability of domestically produced pulses.
At Paswan’s suggestion, the panel decided that a committee headed by the Chief Economic Advisor to the finance ministry would consider a reasonable increase in the minimum support price (MSP) for pulses and a bonus for the farmers. The committee will submit its report within two weeks.
The minister for food and consumer affairs offered more pulses to the States, which have of late, demanded supplies from the buffer stock, at Rs 66 a kg for ‘Tur’ and Rs 82 a kg for Urad for distribution, ensuring that consumers are not charged more than Rs 120 a kg.
The committee decided to explore possibilities for long- term Government to Government agreements with all pulses producing Nations. It also expressed concern over prices of gram (Chana dal), which have spike despite a good production this year. The inter-ministerial panel opined that State governments should take strict action to ensure availability of pulses at reasonable prices.
BW Reporters
Madhumita Chakraborty is a business journalist with long innings in media. She worked with The Economic Times, The Telegraph and The Financial Express before joining BW Businessworld. She has also been a columnist with Hindustan Dainik, a commentator on economic affairs on Lok Sabha Television (now Sansad TV) and a researcher.
