Centre to crackdown on tur and urad dal hoarders amid soaring prices

livemint.com:

tur and urad are rising. The impact of yellow pea imports must be reflected in chana prices but that has not been the case. The market and the price trend indicate supply tightness of chana, resulting in lower procurement by Nafed and higher purchase by private agencies.

Either there is a problem with production or people in the trade are manipulating the market," the first official added. “Trade entities have gradually started declaring their pulses stock position and to date the figure is 3-4 million tonnes that have been declared. There is no issue as such, but the declared stock is not reflected in the market.

It must come into the market. So, we (consumer affairs department) are going to check the entire trail in terms of the quantity they are holding and how long they are holding the stock, disclosing and releasing it into the market." According to the second advance estimate by the agriculture ministry, the production of chana crop is estimated at 12.1 million tonnes, marginally lower than the previous year’s production. The estimate of tur for the current season has been lowered to 3.33 mt from the October estimate of 3.42 mt, but it's on par with the previous year’s output.

In case of urad, (kharif) output is estimated to be 1.5 million tonnes against the previous season’s 1.8 million tonnes. Though inflation in pulses in March eased a tad on month, it remained significantly high year-on-year. Retail inflation in pulses was 17.7% in March, up from 18.9% a month ago and 4.4% a year ago.