India is one of the major producers and consumer of the pulses. Pulses being rich in protein and also contains several amino acids that are required to human body especially vegetarians are. Pulses being a good alternative for protein diet is consumed by quite a large number of people in our country, thus it becomes an essential part of the meals for Indians. But over the time, due to rise in prices of pulses consumption has declines in the past few decades up to a great level. The major causes that lies behind the raise of price of the pulse in less production due to climatic reasons and decreased amount of import by the private importers to fulfill the consumption in India.
Unseasonal rainfalls have impacted the production of the pulses to a great extent has crops have damaged, which have affected both import and export both. On the other hands, private importers have not imported the sufficient amount of pulses from the major countries, which also became the major reason for high prices of pulses in the market.
For the country, where fields are worshiped by farmers, there if someone dies of out of starving or without food, it becomes a matter of shame. Over the time, deaths due to starvation have gradually increased and to regulate the prices so that everybody can afford to buy basic food grain now government has created a “Buffer Stock” to overcome such types of situations. Now the state government would get pulses from the Central Government at reasonable prices, which is at Rs 66 per kg for Arhar and Rs 83 per kg for Urad. Centre has ensured availability in its buffer stock and asked state government to collect food grains making it available for the poor, so that no one dies out of starving. To keep an eye on the process, the Centre has asked states to set up state food commission and monitoring cells at the district levels. Centre also discovered that there were there were also over 1.62 crore fake ration cards, which will in a way prevent leakages of over Rs 36,000.
Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said- “Several factors have led to the rise in price of pulses. Rainfall was low during the last two years causing damage to crops. Besides import was less” He further added- “Now the Centre has created a buffer stock to meet the situation”.
Verdict: It’s obvious that whenever government provide leverages to the poor, fake identities make use of the facility and leads decline in successive rates. High prices have definitely burned the pockets of the regular consumers and in a way affected the economy which did not reflect a good sign. Buffer Stock is a good measure adopted by the Centre and if at the same time monitoring cells also become active, there shall be no one in our country who would ever die out of starvation.
Author: Mrs. Viveka Verma Nagar