Govt agencies buy 1.15L-tonne pulses in kharif, rabi seasons

New Delhi, June 14: In a bid to create a buffer stock of pulses, the government agencies — Food Corporation of India (FCI), Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) and farmers cooperative Nafed — have so far procured 1.15 lakh tonne of pulses (uradandtur/arhar) in the just-ended kharif and rabi seasons.

“Procurement of rabi pulses has reached 64,000 tonne, thus together with earlier procurement of 51,000 tonne in kharif season, total domestic procurement of pulses by government agencies has reached to 1.15 lakh tonne,” an official statement on Tuesday said. Meanwhile, the government has also ordered import of 12,500 tonne of pulses for buffer stocks which include 10,000 tonne of masur and 2,500 tonne of urad. So far 14,321 tonne of pulses have already imported by the government agencies against the total contracted quantity of 38,500 tonne.

The food ministry has recently urged the state governments to seek allocation of pulses from the buffer stock and sell at reasonable prices not exceeding R120 per kg in the market. An inter-ministerial committee consisting of food, agriculture and finance ministries officials was held on Tuesday to to review prices of essential commodities. Last year, the government had decided to create a buffer stocks of pulses of around 1.5 lakh tonne so that the released in the market when prices start rising sharply in the domestic market. The prices of pulses, especially that of arhar or tur and urad, have been steadily rising because of supply constraints since August last year. The retail price of arhar has crossed R160 a kg in most of the places across the country.

The country had imported 4.5 million tonne (mt) of pulses mostly carried out by private parties for meeting domestic shortfall in FY15 and in the last fiscal the imports were around 4.1 mt. Pulses production is estimated to have fallen to 17.06 mt in 201516 from 19.25 mt in 2013-14, due to a deficient monsoon last year.