“We have been going from village to village, convincing farmers to shift to pulses,” a senior official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the promise of assured procurement helped.
Earlier, cooperation minister Amit Shah had urged farmers to cultivate pulses at a large scale, promising them unlimited procurement at the higher of the minimum support price and the market price. The government has resolved to make India self-sufficient in production of pulses by 2027.
The ministries of agriculture and consumer affairs are registering farmers in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu to undertake cultivation of tur and urad.
Agencies such as the National Co-operative Consumers’ Federation of India have distributed high-yielding varieties of seeds to farmers to increase the acreage. The area under pulses increased 14% year-on-year to 10.2 million hectares till July 26, from 8.94 million hectares a year ago, as per government data.Though India is the largest producer of pulses in the world, local consumption exceeds production. Annual consumption is estimated at 28 million tonnes, and is growing steadily with increasing purchasing power of the people, while supply has failed to keep pace.For the past two years, India has seen a fall in the production of tur and urad, forcing the government to ease import restrictions. Last year, it placed tur, urad and masoor under a zero-duty import regime till March 2024. The deadline has now been extended to March 2025.
In early December 2023, the Centre also allowed duty-free imports of yellow peas until March 2024. This deadline was extended till June. Besides, the government recently removed the 40% import duty on chana to enable import of the legume.