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Informist, Wednesday, Mar. 12, 2025

 

By Pallavi Singhal

 

NEW DELHI – The government's procurement of tur is progressing at a sluggish pace even though prices of the key commodity have fallen below the minimum support price. The reason: lack of storage space. "State storages seem to be at capacity with grains, which is hampering pulses procurement," a government official said.

 

The government, through its agencies, has been looking to procure over a million tonnes of tur as it seeks to rebuild its buffer which was depleted over the past two years when the vagaries of weather hit domestic production. As per the consumer affairs ministry's buffer norms, the Department of Consumer Affairs needs to have at least 500,000 tonnes of tur in stock.

 

However, a severe storage crunch has led to problems in procurement. "Our farmers' cooperatives--National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. and National Cooperative Consumer's Federation of India Ltd.--which commenced procurement of tur in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, are facing issues in state warehousing storage as they remain full," the official said. 

 

According to the official, while procurement is progressing slowly in many states due to inavailability of storage space, procurement in Maharashtra has practically come to a halt. "All state warehousing in Maharashtra seems to be full to the brim," the official said. "We are looking at using central warehousing now."

 

The government's decision to procure tur directly from farmers followed the severe shortage of reserve stocks last year, resulting from the inability of the agencies to procure adequate quantities during the season as prices of the commodity remained high due to lower output. The shortage left the agencies powerless to intervene in the retail markets when prices soared.

 

Meanwhile, prices of tur at Akola in Maharashtra are hovering between INR 7,000 and INR 7,400 per 100 kg, below the minimum support price of INR 7,550 per 100 kg. So far, the agencies have purchased only about 35,688 tonnes of tur under the price support scheme of the agriculture ministry, against the quantity of 1.32 million tonnes sanctioned by the ministry.

 

The pulses mission, presented in the Union Budget for the financial year 2025-26 (Apr-Mar), aims to make India self-sufficient in pulses, with special focus on tur, urad, and masur. However, with farmers finding it difficult to sell their crops at assured minimum support prices, the goal appears to be far away, said analysts. Moreover, with the government extending duty-free imports of pulses even as domestic production rises, market sentiment has taken a further hit.

 

Traders and market experts have termed the continuation of the government's import policies anti-farmer. "These measures directly contradict the prime minister and home minister's stated vision of achieving pulses self-sufficiency, as they undermine farmer confidence," agricultural economist Deepak Pareek told Informist Tuesday. "With prices plummeting despite assurances of fair returns, farmers may hesitate to expand pulses cultivation in the coming seasons. This erosion of trust could jeopardise India's long-term agricultural and food security goals." 

 

According to the agriculture ministry's second advance estimates released Monday, tur production in India is expected to rise about 6% to 3.5 million tonnes in the crop year 2024-25 (Jul-Jun) from 3.3 million tonnes in 2023-24. Despite the prospects of a robust kharif harvest, the government last month extended the free import policy for tur or pigeon peas by a year, until Mar. 31, 2026.  End

 

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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