Stopping the import of pulses by the year 2027 is a major challenge for the Agriculture Minister
03-Jul-2024 07:31 PM
New Delhi. The Union Agriculture Minister has been given a huge target to meet the domestic demand, consumption and need of pulses by indigenous production by ending dependence on imports by the year 2027.
The production of pulses has increased significantly during the last decade, but at the same time its demand and consumption has also increased tremendously,
due to which the dependence on its import from abroad has increased even more instead of decreasing. In the 2023-24 season, due to the outbreak and effect of the El Nino weather cycle, there was a huge decline in the domestic production of pulse crops, due to which the import increased to above 40 lakh tonnes.
It is worth remembering that on 4 January 2024, the then and current Cooperative Minister had announced that by the year 2027, the import of pulses from abroad in India would be completely stopped and domestic needs would be met by indigenous production.
This was considered a very ambitious goal for a country like India. The Cooperative Minister had said that by December 2027, India will become completely self-sufficient in terms of pulses and from January 2028, not even a single kilo of pulses will be imported.
India remains the largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses in the world. If the target of self-sufficiency in pulses production is achieved within just three years,
it will definitely be a historic achievement. There has been a strong increase of 37 percent in the production of pulses from the year 2015-16 till now, but still the process of huge imports has not ended. In between,
the government tried to stop the import of Desi gram and yellow peas and also banned the import of moong while started the practice of annual import quota for tuvar and urad.
But now all these controls have been abolished. The new Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan is a good strategist and it is expected from him that he will leave no stone unturned in moving the country towards becoming self-sufficient in terms of pulses in the next four years.