Pune: The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) today allocated quota to the dal processing mills for import of 2.50 lakh tonnes of urad dal before March 31, 2020. Indian government has allowed total urad import of 4 lakh tonnes during 2019-20.
Earlier, the government had allowed import of 1.50 lakh tonnes, which was increased by another 2.50 lakh tonnes on December 19, 20119. The government has kept import of pulses open for only dal millers, who are the actual users of unprocessed pulses. The mills were asked to apply with the quantity they wanted to import till December 30. DGFT received total 1819 applications of which 1778 were approved. “We had requested the government to give equal quota to all the dal mills and the minister accepted our demand,” said Suresh Agrawal, president, All India Dal Millers Association.
Thus, each mill received an import quota of 139 tonnes each. The imports have to land in the country before March 31. Industry sources say that currently, urad is available only in Myanmar. The spot price of urad in Myanmar is about $810/quintal. India had to resort to import of urad as delayed in onset of rainfall, followed by excess and continuous rainfall during harvest period led to fall in production. The industry had been demanding additional import of 2.50 lakh since past 4 months. “It was not possible for the pulses processing units to run smoothly due to shortage of domestic crop,” said Agrawal.
Source: Economic Times
