Government weighs stepping up pulses import as prices rise at committee of secretaries meeting

NEW DELHI: Waking up to the trend of increasing prices of pulses, the agriculture ministry has been asked to work on importing the commodity to tide over any shortfall. It has also been asked to prepare a proposal for the Cabinet to consider options to deal with the situation in the light of reduction in domestic production of pulses and the prevailing international market scenario.

Sources said these decisions were taken at a meeting of committee of secretaries ( CoS) chaired by the Cabinet Secretary on Tuesday. Data show that the prices of pulses have soared in recent months as production has suffered, prompting the government to plot urgent steps.

According to official estimates, the domestic production during 2014-15 is around 17.38 million tonnes (MT) against the total production of 19.25 MT during the previous year. The net availability of pulses has also reduced by about one million tonne. Because of the traditional mismatch between domestic production demand, India has been importing around four million tonnes of pulses on an average for the past few years.

But this year government may have to import five million tonnes. Sources said CoS deliberated on all possible options including the need to identify countries from where India can import the cereals, using a portion of the dedicated corpus of Rs 500 crore price stabilization fund (PSF) for market intervention to make the staple available at cheaper rate to people and asking the major pulses producing states to fix stock limits to prevent hoarding and artificial price increase.

There are also proposals that the PSF can be used by state government agencies for market intervention and government should extend the zero import duty policy for pulses beyond September.

Sources said some of the state governments have also suggested while the Central agencies can import pulses the cereals can be made available through public distribution system ( PDS).

TOI has learnt most of the major pulse consuming states such as Delhi, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Punjab and Chhattisgarh have put stock limits for storing pulses by retailers and wholesalers whereas many of the major producing states such as Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand have not stock limits.

"If you allow people to hoard the item in states where these are produced, it will impact the prices across the country. States also have the power to fix the price under the Essential Commodities Act to ensure traders don't exploit consumers because of a crisis," said a government official.

However, he added that India should start taking steps to push production of pulses rather than depending on imports. The average harvest of pulses in one hectare of land in India is only 750 kg against the international trend of around 1,500 kg.