India likely to import 2.75-2.80-mn tonnes pulses during current fiscal

MUMBAI: Country's pulses import is expected to reach to 2.75-2.80 million tonnes by the end of the current fiscal. The figure is marginally higher compared with previous year's 2.6 million tonnes, as announced by Mr Rajiv Agarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

On the sidelines of a three-day global pulses conference held here, Mr Agarwal said that during the nine months (April-December) period of the ongoing fiscal, India imported 2.4 million tonnes of pulses, a slightly higher quantity as compared with last year's imports of 2.25 million tonnes.

So far, the imported pulses include 1 million tonne yellow peas. The remaining include black matpe or urad, pigeon pea or tur and gram or chana.

Mr Pravin Dongre, President, India Pulses and Grains Association, said, “There are over 500,000 tonnes of yellow peas in four ports.” Presently, India has record stocks of yellow peas.

During the previous year, the final pulses production of India was a record 18.2 million tonnes.

Besides pulses, the wheat crop is also expected to be a bumper crop at 88.31 million tonnes. Last year, country witnessed 86.87 million tonnes of wheat output.