Govt ropes in professional agency for procurement of pulses

Taking a lesson from the past experiences, when the government failed in procurement of pulses and prices of lentils crossed Rs 200/kg mark, the Centre has decided to rope in professional procuring agency for efficient management of buffer stock of pulses in the country.

In his written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Food CR Chaudhary on Tuesday said that the government has approved engaging a professional agency for efficient management of buffer stock of pulses, being created for use in times of price rise, "As per latest data of February 1, around 9.71 lakh tonnes of pulses have been procured and contracted for imported towards building the buffer against the targeted buffer stock of 20 lakh tonnes," the minister said.

Adequate capacity of storage of pulses is available with the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), he said, adding that 50,958.01 tonnes of pulses have been allocated to states/union territories so far, of which they have paid for around 37,533 tonnes and lifted around 35,454 tonnes.

No state has asked for 1,00,000 tonnes of pulses from the buffer individually, he noted. On pulses prices, the Minister said they have not increased during the last two months of the current fiscal.

Replying to a separate query on wheat, he said, the country has imported 18.97 lakh tonne wheat during March-December period of 2016 as against 5.05 lakh tonnes in the previous year.