Govt to import 7,500 tonne of chana, masoor dal

New Delhi, June 30: The government on Thursday decided to import 7,500 tonne of chana and masoor dal in the coming days to boost domestic supply and curb prices.

The pulses issue was discussed in detail in the meeting of Management Committee of Price Stabilisation Fund, chaired by consumer affairs secretary Hem Pande in New Delhi on Thursday.

“The meeting decided to further tender import of 5,000 tonne of chana and 2,500 tonne of masoor. It also asked MMTC to order import of 2,500 masoor against its already contracted quantity,” the food ministry said in a statement.

So far, state-run MMTC — which is importing pulses on behalf of the government — has contracted 46,000 tonne of pulses from the overseas market. Of this, 14,321 tonne has landed in the country. In the meeting, the government al- so decided to allocate pulses from its buffer stock to Chhat- tisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar for retail distribution at a subsidised rate of R120 per kg.

The pulses, especially tur and urad, are allocated to these states at R66 per kg so that they can retail further at not more than R120 per kg. So far, 1.19 lakh tonne of pulses has been procured for the buffer stock. The rabi pulses procurement is expected to continue till July, the statement added.

At present, pulses prices are retailing as high as R198 per kg due to shortfall in the domestic output following two consecutive years of drought.

Pulses output is estimated to be lower at 17.06 mt in 201516 crop year (July-June) as against the annual demand of 23.5 mt. The gap is being met through imports. PTI