Farmers have been staging protests as domestic prices are falling on the back of a glut last year and an expected good harvest following a good monsoon
New Delhi: The Union government has allotted quotas for import of pulses and is enforcing an additional import agreement with Mozambique at a time when domestic stocks are at their highest, domestic production is expected to be high and prices are crashing. Farmers and millers are unhappy with the situation, but the government says it is balancing the needs of Indian consumers and commitments to foreign trade partners on the one hand and the interests of Indian farmers on the other.
The final allocations of import quotas — totalling two lakh tonnes of tur or arhar dal, and 1.5 lakh tonnes each of moong and urad — were made at a meeting at the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on Monday. Those amounts represent a quantitative restriction that was slapped on pulses imports in August 2017 in response to a glut in domestic supply and falling prices, which continues this year. On the back of a good monsoon forecast, the Agriculture Commissioner predicts domestic pulses production of 24 million tonnes in 2018-19, slightly higher than last year’s.
However, the DGFT issued a notice last month exempting pulses imports from Mozambique from the restrictions.
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