Pulse of the nation: Dal prices shoot up

PRECIOUS AS GOLD: Once called the poor man's diet, dal is now unaffordable for lower income households.

Ads by Google

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

• Price rise issue turns into Centre vs states war

• India's annual food inflation rises to 14.55 pc

• Inflation rises to 1.21 per cent

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

  

New Delhi: Like gold, prices of essentials are touching record levels. One kilogram of dal (pulses) now costs more than Rs 100.

Once called the poor man's diet, dal is now unaffordable for lower income households. Moong dal is selling at around Rs 104 per kg in Delhi's retail shops and arhar dal is also selling above Rs 100.

Dal prices crossed the Rs 100 mark in Mumbai last week.

At these rates, black grapes and pomegranates are cheaper than dal.

Shopkeepers in the Capital told CNN-IBN that hoarding of dal is the cause of this price rise. They also said that the Kharif crop has been bad this year - it has fallen by 2.03 million tonnes from last year - causing the shortage.

Also, since the incentive to grow pulses is low, MP and Gujarat farmers have moved on to growing higher profit crops like soy, wheat and cotton.

Shopkeepers allege that the acreage under pulses has not increased and that the Rajasthan acreage is down on scanty rains. The moong and urad harvests are done in Rajasthan.

Karnataka, also an important state in dal production, has seen a lot of damage this year in terms of heavy rains and floods.

Prices of most pulses have increased between 80 to 100 per cent in the past one year.

Top quality Toor dal has jumped from Rs 60 in November 2008 to Rs 115 per kg this year. Moong dal has gone up from Rs 65 to Rs 110 per kg and urad dal has shot up to Rs 100 per kg from Rs 70.

And nobody expects prices to come down in the near future.

Wholesale prices are between Rs 55 - Rs 65 and add to that the 40 per cent for processing and another 20 per cent local charges and dal has suddenly gone out of reach for lower-middle level households.

Meanwhile, the Government says that it is the intermediaries who are hoarding pulses, causing the prices to shoot up. It says speculation is not to blame as pulses are banned from futures trade.