How Indian Government Initiatives Skyrocket Tur and Urad Production

• As part of initiative to make India “Atma Nirbhar” The Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs has identified 35 new districts for cultivation of Tur and 13 districts for Urad. This initiative is taken up to bring more area under coverage of these two pulses.

  This will enable high yield varieties of these seeds. Food inflation, driven by pulses and vegetables, remains a sore point for policymakers. In June, prices of pulses surged 21.64% year-on-year, more than double the 9.21% increase seen a year ago, according to government data.

  The senior officials statement noted that the government is going from village to village to urge farmers shift from other crops to pulses.

  "The government will procure all tur, urad and masur dal produced by farmers," Shivraj Singh Chauhan Union Agriculture and Welfare Minister said, while replying to a supplementary question in the Rajya Sabha.

  Even Amit Shah Home Affairs and Cooperation Minister also guided the farmers to cultivate pulses promising them procurement higher rate than support price. The aim is to make India self-sufficient in production by 2027.

  The farmers were given high yielding varieties of seeds by National Cooperative Consumers Federation while the yield flourished by 14% to 10.2 million hectares till 26th July from 8.94 million hectares as per government data.

  It is also important to note that the consumption of pulses exceeds the production in India despite of being largest producer of pulses.

  In early December 2023, the Centre also allowed duty-free imports of yellow peas until March 2024. This deadline was extended till June. Besides, the government recently removed the 40% import duty on chana to enable import of the legume.

  For the past two years, India has seen a fall in the production of tur and urad, forcing the government to ease import restrictions. Last year, it placed tur, urad and masoor under a zero-duty import regime till March 2024. The deadline has now been extended to March 2025.

  To conclude we can say that the emphasis on inhouse production of pulses can be a game changer. The more the farmers become self-sufficient the better it’s impact will be on imports and exports of the country.