Centre to sell imported tur dal via Kendriya Bhandar, Safal

The Centre today said it will sell imported tur (arhar) dal via Kendriya Bhandar and Safal outlets in Delhi at a lower rate in order to give relief to consumers as retail prices have shot up to Rs 150 per kg.
It has also asked state-owned MMTC, which is already importing 5,000 tonnes of tur dal on behalf of the government, to import additional 2,000 tonnes of tur dal to augment supplies and moderate domestic pulses prices.
These decisions were taken at a meeting, headed by Consumer Affairs Secretary C Vishwanath, held here today. Officials of Food and Agriculture Ministries as well as MMTC, Mother Dairy and Kendriya Bhandar were present.

Tur dal will be sold in the national capital through 400 retail outlets of Kendriya Bhandar and Mother Dairy's retail chain Safal. However, the selling price of imported tur dal has not been decided yet.
MMTC has contracted to import 5,000 tonnes of tur dal, out of which 3,250 tonnes have landed at Chennai and Mumbai ports. The remaining stock will arrive soon. The public sector firm has separately contracted to import 5,000 tonnes of urad.
"It was decided in the meeting that Kendriya Bhandar would be lifting tur dal from MMTC at Mumbai and supplying at its 100 locations in Delhi, while Safal would be supplying tur dal through its 300 outlets. This will help in making available tur dal at lower prices in the capital," the Union Food Ministry said in a statement.

The two agencies will lift imported raw tur dal from MMTC at subsidised rate of Rs 69 per kg. They will decide the final selling price after adding processing and other charges, a Food Ministry official said.

A Mother Dairy official said that the final selling price of imported tur dal has not been decided yet but it would definitely be lower than the current market rate.
Pulses prices have risen by 75 per cent in the last one year due to fall in domestic output by about 2 million tonnes to 17.20 million tonnes in 2014-15 crop year (July-June) due to deficient monsoon last year and unseasonal rains.

India, the world's biggest pulses importer, purchased 4.58 million tonnes of pulses in the 2014-15 fiscal from the overseas market as against 3.17 million tonnes in the previous year.