India has imported more than 8 million tonnes of pulses worth over Rs 21,000 crore in last three years to meet the domestic demand, the Parliament was informed today.
"India is the largest producer of pulses in world, but is not self-sufficient in pulses. About 12-15 per cent of the total pulse requirement are imported", Minister for Food and Agriculture Sharad Pawar said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
He said the country had imported 8.8 million tonnes of pulses in the last three fiscals and in terms of value, the total import during that period stood at Rs 21,793 crore.
Pulses' import went up to 3.5 million tonnes in 2009-10 fiscal from 2.48 million tonnes in the previous financial year. In value terms, the import was worth Rs 9,813 crore in 2009-10 fiscal against Rs 6,246 crore in 2008-09.
In 2007-08 fiscal, total import of pulses stood at 2.8 million tonnes a Rs 5,374 crore in value terms.
Domestic production of pulses had been around 14-14.8 million tonnes in last three years whereas demand stood around 17-18 million tonnes during the same period, he said.
"The gap between demand and supply is filled by import of variety of pulses from different countries...," Pawar said.
