As if the poor monsoon is not a dampener enough, the public will now have to spend more on their staple food too. The staple diet of an average person in India is rice and dal (pulse), mainly moong, masoor and tur, the latter consumed mainly by Maharashtrians and Gujaratis. Now, the consumers of tur dal, will need to do better economic planning or opt for an alternate dal in order to consume their favourite staple diet.
Since the last one month, there has been volatility in the price of pulses and now prices are increasing on a daily basis. The domestic tur dal, which is otherwise known as Latur dal was, till a month ago, priced at Rs54-55 and the white premium tur was priced at Rs57 per kilo. The Latur dal on Friday was Rs81 per kilo and on Saturday, Rs82 per kilo. The premium tur was priced at Rs87 on Friday, which increased to Rs88 per kilo the next day.
“Since the last one month the pulses market has seen an unprecedented volatility. Tur dal, for example, started with Rs57 and is now already being traded at Rs82 per kilo,” said Ajay Shah, the proprietor of Raichand L Shah, wholesale traders for over two decades.
Wholesale market traders of pulses say that this volatility is genuine and there is a problem regarding the stock. “This is not speculation as the volatility has persisted for a while. Due to bad monsoons, the raw material required for sowing is not available in the market and there is no stock upmarket either,” said Shah.
In fact, with the price of tur dal increasing, the ripple effect has been on other pulses too. Now even the gram dal, masoor and moong dal prices have shot up. “The gram dal prices too have been changing everyday. The gram dal-producing areas are Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. We have seen how these areas have been struggling under the fear of drought. The government needs to address this problem urgently,” said D Shah, a wholesale trader in gram dal.
Economists say that the fear of monsoon failure initially led to panic-buying of dal and pulses. In addition, the import of these products too has fallen this year and economists say that government intervention can help in procuring more pulses.
“There has been a lurking fear that the monsoons have failed this year and that this trend of price increase of pulses will continue. One should remember that price of pulses are based on fundamentals and not speculation,” said Madan Sabhnavis, economist with National Commodity and DerivativesExchange Ltd. (NCDEX) to DNA. He added, “The impact will continue for the next 3-4 months till we know the status on kharif crops (pulses are kharif crops). If we get normal rains in the next two-three months then the price will stabilise.”
Farmers say that the problem was anticipated a few years ago since the production of tur dal had stopped ever since. In addition, unlike cotton and other crops, there has been little research on getting hybrid seeds of pulses and dals.
“India has always been deficit in pulses. We got a lot of tur dal from Burma. Since the last two years these imports have decreased. On the other hand, there has been little research on hybrid tur or other dals,” said Dilip Kale, a farmer.
Kale said the farmers and traders have asked the government to import tur dal but it is simply not available even in foreign markets. “It takes a minimum four months waiting period for importing tur and other dals,” he said.
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