Mumbai: As mess over tur dal (pigeon pea) procurement doesn’t seem to be ending, as the Maharashtra government is likely to approach the Union government to get permission to purchase more pulses from farmers, a government resolution issued on Thursday revealed.
Maharashtra has seen bumper production of tur dal this year. According to the government’s estimate, almost 20 lakh tonnes of tur dal has been produced. However, till now, the government has declared that only 5.85 lakh metric tonnes of the pulse has been procured at government centres, which is just 30 per cent of the total production.
Recently chief minister Devendra Fadnavis met agriculture minister Radhamohan Singh, requesting that the procurement limits for National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) be increased. However, he only got permission for one lakh tonnes, which does not offer a lot of relief in this situation. But Mr Singh has agreed to keep NAFED procurement centres open till May 31.
Taking the help of this provision, the state government is trying to push for its demand of increasing procurement to the centre. Thursday’s GR mentioned the same.
The GR also asked all the divisional commissioners to provide daily reports of tur procurement. If the demand for purchase continues after 90 per cent of the one lakh tonnes of tur dal is procured, the state will make a request to the Centre to give additional procurement quota, it said.
The government has asked the farmers to submit a declaration which will have details such as their Aadhaar numbers, crop-pattern receipts, 7/12 extract (land title) copies and bank account numbers. Every farmer approaching the procurement centre will get a wait-list token, and get a phone call a day before the procurement date of his or her tur dal, so that it can then be transported to the centre, the GR stated.
