According to Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the households have curtailed consumption of pulses in the first half of this year due to high prices.
The per capita consumption of pulses declined to 11 kg in the first half. In contrast, the per capita consumption in the 1960's was 27 kg.
A factor responsible for this situation is that no serious attention has been paid to increase pulses production, especially under the National Food Security Mission (NFSM), which focused more on wheat, rice, millet and corn. Efforts were made to increase the yield of these crops at the cost of pulses, the report said.
As a result, the yield for a hectare declined and in turn, production has been hit. The situation has resulted in prices doubling during the last one year.
The Assocham said it is likely that the per capita consumption could decline to near nine kg in the later part of the year since it is unlikely that the soaring prices will be checked.
Currently, tur or red gram is quoting around Rs 100 a kg, while prices of other lentils are also ruling higher on fear of the deficit monsoon affecting pulses production.
The report further adds that the area under pulses crop was not increasing and the growth in yield was sluggish.
The compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of pulses during the last five decades has been a meagre 0.9 per cent.
In fact, until 2007-08, production never topped 14.91 million tonnes (mt). During 2007-08, production clocked a record high of 15.1 million tonnes.
The country is well short of demand and has to resort to imports. Increasing demand for pulses on account of rising population has led to imports increasing to over 20 lakh tonnes during 2008-09 from 4.6 lakh tonnes during 1998-99.
The report points out that since pulses demand remains price sensitive, per capita consumption has gradually declined over the years. While total pulses availability in the country has reflected a growth of mere 1.39 per cent (CAGR) during the last two decades, population has increased at a CAGR of more than 1.8 per cent.
Low import tariffs have helped increased imports, including the June 8, 2006 decision of allowing pulses shipments into the country duty-free. In order to battle against rising domestic prices and for fulfilling domestic needs government allowed duty free imports from June 8, 2006.
Consequently, imports touched 2.26 million tonnes in 2006-07, the maximum since 1980-81. India occupied top slot in chick peas and dry beans imports in 2005. India imports sizeable quantities of pulses including chick peas, dry beans, lentils and dry peas, besides tur, urad and moong. Ironically, countries like Canada, Australia are factoring Indian demand in their production plans and are highly successful in exploiting Indian situation to their advantage
Interestingly, India's export of pulses grew at a far greater pace than imports, from 1.09 thousand tonnes in 1980-81 to 447.44 thousand tonnes in 2005-06. Looking at rising consumption of pulses in India against domestic output and resultant high prices, the government banned export of pulses.
India imports significant quantity of pulses from Canada, Myanmar, Australia, and the USA each contributing about 40 per cent, 27 per cent, 9 per cent and 6 per cent respectively to total imports of India. The other countries including Ukraine, France, China and Tanzania are also offering varying quantity of pulses to India. The country's imports from Canada, Australia and the USA have increased during the last five years though, imports from Myanmar has shown slight decrease recently.
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