States failed to act against pulses hoarders: FM Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: The government has blamed the states for the rise in prices of pulses, accusing them of not taking action while hoarders were stockpiling the staple to profit from the shortfall in production. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said states have started to take action under the Centre’s pressure and recovered staggering 36,000 tonnes of dal that together with imports will boost supply and ease prices.

“It’s a matter of regret that most states were doing nothing to discharge their responsibility in taking action against these hoarders,” Jaitley said after a meeting of the group constituted by the PM to monitor the prices and availability of pulses on Wednesday. He also said 5,000 tonne of imported dal has already arrived and is being distributed and another 3,000 tonne was on its way.

Tamil Nadu has started picking up a lot of quantities out of the imported dal while Andhra has expressed desire to take large quantities, the FM said. The government has swung into action after the rice of tur dal has shot up to about Rs 200/kg in some retail markets. In Delhi tur dal is available at 380 Safal stores and 103 Kendriya Bhandars at Rs 120/kg.

The group constituted by PM includes cabinet ministers Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu, and minister of state (independent charge) Nirmala Sitharaman, besides Jaitley. The domestic production in the current season is expected at 2 million tonnes less than last year.

The FM said even internationally the production has been lower this year.

“It is essentially available in 3-4 countries. Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar and there also the production is little low which has led to the rise of the global prices,” Jaitley said, assigning the biggest blame to hoarders.

“The third additional reason appears to be that making use of this low availability the hoarders have hoarded large quantities,” he said, informing 3,290 searched all over India have already been made, raids are still continuing and more will happen.