Enough buffer stock of pulses: Govt

“In fact, we are telling the states that you should take pulses from us for schemes like Mid-Day Meal. The Union Cabinet has already decided to provide gram for states’ schemes like ICDS at Rs 8 per kg lower than the market price… Instead of buying costly from the market, they can take from us,” Singh said, adding that based on the Indent received from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, 88,600 MT of chana has been allocated to these states till date.

In a statement, the Department of Consumer Affairs said, “In order to augment the buffer stock, the government has started procurement of 1 lakh tons of imported tur and 50,000 tons of imported urad.”

Sharing details of pulses imports, Singh said that 5 vessels are at Mozambique port for loading tur and one vessel carrying tur is in transit. One vessel carrying tur has landed in India in the first week of October, he said.

He also informed that 2 vessels carrying masoor—one each from Canada and Australia are in transit and one vessel has reached Kakinada port.

Sharing information about the use of new technology for prediction of prices of essential commodities, Singh said, “We have started a new exercise of prediction. If these conditions are today, what will be the prices of onion three months later? So, there is a science behind predictive analytics.”

“We along with Delhi University’s professors who deal in artificial intelligence are using two-three algorithms like Random forest, Neural networks which have input data of commodities and global situation and based on that these algorithms forecast what will be the price level three months later,” he said.

“If we predict beyond three months, then there is a higher degree of uncertainty. One month’s prediction is more accurate. This is done as advance planning,” he said.

Giving details of the onion buffer stock, Singh said that the Centre has built a buffer stock of 2.50 LMT (Lakh Metric Tons) of onion during the Rabi 2022 harvesting period.

He said that the government is mulling the use of irradiation technology to minimize post-harvest losses of onion.