With the aim to ensure that people get nutritious food, the Uttar Pradesh government has set a target to increase pulse production in the next five years so that despite an increase in prices of dal it does not vanish from the common man’s plate.
The production of pulses has increased from 23.94 lakh metric tons to 25.34 lakh MT between 2016-17 and 2020-21. The productivity per hectare has also increased from 9.5 quintals to 10.65 quintals during this period. This is only 45 per cent of the state's consumption.
“According to the five-year target set for Yogi Adityanath government 2.0, the area under pulses is to be increased to 28.84 lakh hectares with the productivity per hectare being 12.41 quintals and the production target is set at 35.79 lakh MT,” a government spokesman said here on Saturday.
He said keeping in view the importance of quality seeds in production, the distribution of certified and foundation seeds of new varieties of different crops of pulses will be increased from 28,751 quintals to 82,000 quintals.
“These seeds will be given to the farmers at subsidised rates. In order to increase the area of pulses crops; pulses (urd, moong) crops will be encouraged in inter-cropping and zaid crops. An increase in production will also be achieved by using sprinkler irrigation systems on uneven land, increase in production by cultivating with furrow and ridge technology and guarantee of procurement at a minimum support price (MSP),” the spokesman said.
India is the world's largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses. Being the state with the largest population, the maximum share of this consumption is from UP itself. In such a situation, the pulse producing countries like Canada, Australia, America, Turkey and Myanmar keep an eye not only on the production of India and Uttar Pradesh but also on the storage for six months. In such a situation, if the yield is less, then in view of the huge demand here, pulses become dearer in the international market.
The official said it also had a great impact on the position of the dollar against the rupee. If the dollar is more expensive than the rupee, imports also become expensive. In this way, the country has to spend valuable foreign exchange on the import of pulses.
If Uttar Pradesh becomes self-sufficient in the production of pulses, then the foreign exchange would also be saved, the official said.