Deputy Minister of Russian Ministry of Agriculture meets Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India; discusses cooperation in pulses trade

A delegation led by Mr. Maxim Titov, Deputy Minister of Russian Ministry of Agriculture met Ms. Nidhi Khare, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs on 11^th November, 2024 and discussed measures to enhance cooperation in the field of trade in pulses. Russia has emerged as a major source of India’s import of masur (lentils) and yellow peas from recent past. Apart from these two pulses, Russia is also contemplating to diversify its pulses production to urad (black matpe) and tur (pigeon pea).

A gradual, but significant easing of supply situation in respect of major pulses like tur, urad and chana are observed from July, 2024 with encouraging kharif prospect and continuous imports. Tur crop is reported to be good and early harvest of tur crop in pockets of Karnataka have started. The overall availability of pulses has been comfortable with robust inflow of imports of tur, urad, chana and yellow peas, this year. Tur and urad imports for calendar year, 2024 at 10 LMT and 6.40 LMT, respectively by first week of November have already exceeded the whole year import figures during last year. The arrival of chana imports from Australia in bulk cargoes are expected from November. The recent diversification of source countries for pulses played an important role in ensuring contiounous inflows at increasingly competitive rates.

Meanwhile, the preliminary reports of rabi sowing for chana, masur, urad and moong indicates that initial delay in some states due to prolonged rains are now recovering the lag in area coverage. Overall sentiment and sowing intention are reported to be upbeat because of good price realisation.

The government has decided to upscale the onion disposal in order to address temporary constraint in onion supply observed in certain markets in the past 2/3 days owing to festival season and closure mandis. NAFED has indented two more rakes for Delhi-NCR and one for Guwahati this week. Similarly, dispatch through road transport would also be upscaled to ensure availability of onions in the market. The availability of onions would be further accentuated by more supplies from NCCF, both through rail and road transport. Additionally, the government has also decided to offload onions kept in cold storage at Sonipat to meet the requirements of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Himachal, J&K, Delhi etc. The government is alive to the market developments and keeping close watch to take ameliorative action to stabilise the onion prices.

As per the assessment of Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, actual kharif sown area this year was 3.82 lakh hectare which is 34% higher than 2.85 lakh hectare sown last year. Sowing progress of late kharif onion is also reported to be normal with coverage of 1.28 lakh hectare till first week of November.

The government had procured 4.7 lakh tons of rabi onion for the price stabilization buffer this year, and started the release from 5^th September, 2024 through retail sale at Rs.35 per kg and also through bulk sales in major mandis across the country. Till date over 1.50 lakh tonnes of onion in the buffer has been dispatched from Nashik and other source centres to consuming centres through trucks by road transport.

Earlier, 1,600 MT of onion transported by Kanda Express and arrived at Kishanganj Station in Delhi on 20^th October, 2024, and another shipment of 840 MT of onion by rail rake to Delhi arrived on 30^th October, 2024. Bulk shipment of onions has also been sent to Chennai and Guwahati in recent past. On 23^rd October, 2024, 840 MT of onion had been dispatched from Nashik by rail rake which arrived at Chennai on 26^th October 2024. A shipment of 840 MT onion by rail rake arrived at Changsari Station in Guwahati on 5^th November, 2024 which was distributed in various district of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and other NE States.

Retail prices of tomato are on the decline with the fall in mandis prices. At Azadpur mandi, the weekly average price is down by 27% to Rs.4,000 per quintal and at Pimpalgaon the weekly average price is down by 35% to Rs.2,250 per quintal. In Madanapalle the weekly average price is down by 26% to Rs.2,860 per quintal amidst a 20% increase in total weekly arrivals. In Kolar the weekly average price is down by 27% to Rs.2,250 per quintal.

The all-India average retail prices of potato are stable during last three months at about Rs.37 per kg. The weekly average mandi prices of Rs.1,860 per quintal at Agra has been down by 15% during last week. As per the market intelligence inputs, overall Potato acreage is expected to increase by 16% this year with expected 10% increase in Punjab and Farrukhabad region in UP. In Madhya Pradesh, 80% sowing is completed and sowing area in Indore and Shajapur are reported to be up by 8% other areas like Ujjain region is at par with last year. In West Bengal, the sowing is yet to begin, but the sowing intentions according to the seed sales is reported to be higher than last year.