The Centre on Tuesday approved signing of a long-term MoU with Mozambique to import two lakh tonnes of pulses by 2020-21 to meet India’s growing demand for dals.
According to a report, the African nation will be producing Indian varieties of pulses, including arhar and urad.
IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the taste of the crop grown will taste like those produced in India. Generally, the taste is different and imported pulses do not find many takers here. Therefore, the Indian government will also provide high quality seeds and technical assistance to Mozambique.
Mozambique was chosen after a proposal was sent to the country for import of pulses through the G2G trade option. Meanwhile, the other country to which the proposal was sent was Myanmar, which told that preferred trade through private route.
The prices of the imported pulses will be stabilised. The import will be done through private channels or government-to-government (G2G) sales through state agencies nominated by the two countries.
During 2015-16, total pulses production in India was 17 million tonnes while 5.79 million tonnes of pulses were imported to meet the domestic requirement. However, the availability of pulses including domestic production and imports was less than domestic requirement, affecting prices during 2015-16 and the current fiscal.