India to turn self-sufficient in production of pulses in 3-4 years: Govt

20 Jul 2011 Evaluate

The government has claimed that the country would turn fully self-sufficient in production of pulses in the next 3-4 years, and hence there won’t be any need for imports of pulses thereafter. According to the 4th Advance Estimates of crop production for the year, released by the Agriculture Ministry the total pulses output for 2010-11 touched an all-time-high level of 18.09 million tonnes (mt), the number surpasses the previous record of 14.91 mt achieved in 2003-04.

The Agriculture Secretary, Mr P.K. Basu said that ‘We can easily produce 20 mt of pulses by bringing in fallow land under cultivation and through inter-cropping. I don’t think we have to import pulses after 3-4 years.”

In 2009-10, India imported nearly 3.7 mt of pulses valued at Rs 10,390 crore. Last fiscal, imports fell both in quantitative as well as value terms to 2.7 mt and Rs 7,386 crore. This came even as the country harvested record crops of gram, moong and urad.

Besides pulses, the Agriculture Ministry has also revised upwards its 2010-11 production estimates to new highs for total foodgrains (now put at 241.56 mt), wheat (85.93 mt), coarse grains (42.22 mt), maize (21.28 mt), oilseeds (31.10 mt) and soyabean (12.66).

While the cotton output estimate has been lowered to 33.43 million bales from the 33.93 million bales in the 3rd and 2nd Advance Estimates. As per the 4th Advance Estimates production of most of key items such as wheat, coarse cereals, maize, pulses, oilseeds and cotton were all at record highs and the government is targeting foodgrain production of 245 million tonne during 2011-12.

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