 "Subramanian bats for higher MSP on all pulses")
The committee was set up in July by the government to review MSP and bonus for pulses in an attempt to boost pulses output and check prices. Subramanian submitted the report to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Friday. In its report, the panel has recommended that the government should immediately announce an MSP of Rs 40 per kg for gram for rabi 2016, up from Rs 35 now, and Rs 60 per kg for both urad and tur for kharif 2017, up from Rs 50 per kg for the former and Rs 52.50 for the latter.
“Minimum support prices for other pulses should be increased by the same percentage as calculated for tur, urad, and gram,” it said.
“For long, pulses have been the step-child of Indian agriculture policy, compared with cereals,” Subramanian told reporters in an interaction after presenting the report.
The panel has recommended in its report that the government should build up 2 million tonnes of pulses stock with targets for individual pulses, especially tur (3.5 lakh tonnes) and urad (2 lakh tonnes). These should be built up gradually but opportunistically, buying when prices are low as in the current year. “To ensure effective procurement, a High Level Committee comprising Ministers of Finance, Agriculture, and Consumer Affairs and Principal Secretary to PM should be constituted. There should be weekly reporting by procurement agencies on the ground with physical verification of procurement,” it said, adding that these steps should be taken immediately.
The report also recommended that the government should procure pulses on a “war footing”, create a buffer stock of 2 million tonnes, push states to de-list pulses from the APMC, and prescribed subsidies to farmers for growing pulses.
“It is the strong view of this report that enhancing domestic productivity and production of pulses rapidly and sustainably is the only reliable way of minimising volatility in the market and safeguarding interests of farmers and consumers,” the report said.
“Efforts to be made to give production subsidies to farmers for growing pulses in irrigated areas of about Rs 10-15 per kg via DBT,” it added.
The CEA report pitched for encouraging “development of GM technologies” to boost pulses productivity. It also said expeditious approval should be given to indigenously developed new varieties of pulses.
Furthermore, it suggested elimination of the export ban on pulses and stock limits, and “more generally, the use of trade policy to control domestic prices, which induces policy volatility, should be avoided”.
With the government gearing up to achieve storage of a record 2 million tonnes of pulses, a committee headed by Subramanian on Friday advocated setting up of a new body in public private partnership (PPP) mode to handle these stocks.
However, not all seem to be impressed with the CEA’s recommendations to create a permanent structure to purchase pulses and also create an agency on the PPP model for storage and distribution of the same.
“To me, whenever the government enters into a trading activity of purchasing and storage of farm commodities, it does so at a loss. In this case, government will have to purchase pulses at a loss, thereafter when they give it to the millers for processing there is a potential of pilferage and so also during distribution. My fear is that such an exercise should not lead to massive inefficiencies which inflict our wheat and rice procurement and distribution system,” noted grain analyst Tejinder Narang told Business Standard.
Prices in the major wholesale markets have dropped below their MSPs for moong after staying at an elevated levels for most of 2016. Pulses production in 2016-17 is expected to be an all-time high of over 22 million tonnes on the back of record kharif output. Production fell to 16.47 million tonnes in 2015-16 and 17.15 million tonnes in 2014-15 because of drought. The highest quantum of pulses produced in India was 19.25 million tonnes in 2013-14.
