Price of pulses to ease on good harvest: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said price of pulses should come down following good harvest and action taken against hoarders.

Jaitley said retail inflation has come to down to about 4% from 12% during UPA regime and the current spike in prices of pulses was because the state had not taken action against hoarders.

"The rate of inflation has come down in last one-and-a-half year. Prices of many commodities have come down. But there are some products, whose arrival is less in the Indian market as well as foreign markets," Jaitley said at an event in Delhi.

"The requirement of pulses is 22 million tonne in India. We increased the production up to 17 million tonne but still we are short of 5 million tonne production."

"Most of the countries from where we used to import pulses have also recorded low production. Some traders took benefit from it and hoarded the commodity. It was the state governments' responsibility to take action and carry out raids," he said. FM said following many raids after the intervention by the Centre and states, prices of pulse have come down.