Paswan for Tur at 25% Duty

Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Monday said his ministry is in favour of increasing import duty on tur dal from 10 per cent to 25 per cent in the interest of farmers.

Paswan’s comments follow a meeting with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devender Fadnavis who sought hike in customs duty on tur dal saying farmers are struggling to get even the minimum support price (MSP) because of record output.

The Centre had last month imposed import duty of 10 per cent on tur dal do protect domestic growers.

The Food Ministry too had proposed 25 per cent import duty on tur dal but only 10 per cent was imposed, he said.

Higher import duty is necessary to curb sale of cheaper imported dals as domestic produce at the minimum support price (MSP) to the government agencies, he added.

Paswan said government agencies are procuring pulses for buffer stock. It is buying at MSP and the deadline for procurement of summer (kharif) sown pulses was till April 22.

The Maharashtra government also requested the centre to come out with long term strategy to address the supply-demand gap in pulses and this was accepted by the Food Ministry.

The country’s tur dal production is estimated to be 4.23 million tonnes in the 2016-17 crop year (July-June) as against 2.56 million tonnes in the year-ago period. Tur dal is grown in summer (kharif) season.