New Delhi, Oct 24 (DHNS): As government raids recovered an additional 15,335.95 tonnes of pulses from four states on Friday, importers rushed to meet Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seeking exemption from adherence to stockholding limits.
Importers told Jaitley that they have contracted 25 lakh tonnes of lentils from international markets and that it will reach Indian shores shortly.
They also offered to supply 1 lakh kg of arhar dal at Rs 135 per kg to government agencies everyday during the festival season till November end.
“Pulses prices will come down only if there is smooth availability of imported dals. Therefore, pulses imports will have to be exempted from the stockholding limit. Any kind of restriction would dry the pipeline,” said Pravin Dongre, chairman of the Indian Pulses and Grain Association, a Mumbai-based trade body, after meeting Jaitley.
Pulses have to be milled after it is imported as whole grains and this process requires millers to hold large amount of lentil stocks.
The association also mentioned that the average stockholding limit for importers is about 300-350 tonnes in states.
Imports would be difficult to undertake with such limits as a vessel carries a minimum of 50,000 tonnes of pulses.
Raids continue
State governments continued to raid millers, importers, exporters, departmental stores and licensed food processing units within the ambit of the stockholding limits to boost supplies in the market.
About 15,335.95 tonnes of pulses were recovered during raids in four states, including Maharashtra and Karnataka. This takes the total seizure of pulses so far to 50,656.79 tonnes following 3149 raids across 10 states.
According to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, of the 15,335.95 tonnes of pulses recovered on Friday, 7,033 tonnes was seized from Maharashtra, 5,487.74 tonnes from Karnataka, 2,051 tonnes from Rajasthan and 764.07 tonnes from Haryana.
As a result, there has been a decrease of about Rs 200 per quintal in the rates of pulses in Mumbai and also in future trading of channa, the ministry stated.