Government to engage pulses management companies for buffer stock

NEW DELHI: The government has approved engaging professional pulses buffer management entity for efficient management of the buffer stock, Minister of State for Food C R Chaudhary said in his written reply to the Lok Sabha.
Currently the Food Corporation of India, Nafed and Small Farmers Agriculture Business Consortium were procuring pulses for the buffer stock.

He said that as on February 2, around 9.71 lakh tonnes of pulses have been procured and contracted for imports towards building the buffer. The government has set a target to build a buffer stock of 20 lakh tonnes to ensure prices of pulses remain stable. “Pulses prices have not increased during the last two months of the current fiscal,” said Chaudhary.

He added that adequate capacity for storage of pulses-tur, urad, chana, moong and masur is available with the Central Warehousing Corporation.
“No state has asked for one lakh tonnes of pulses from the buffer individually. However, based on the demand received from the states and union territories, as on February 1, around 50,958.01 tonnes of pulses has been allocated to the states and union territories, of which they have paid for around 37,533.549 tonnes and lifted around 35,454.124 tonnes,” he informed.

Source: ECONOMIC TIMES