Govt in a bind over supplying pricey tur dal to BPL families

 Steep increase in the tur dal price in the open market of late has made the government think twice about a proposal to supply the pulse to the BPL families under the public distribution system from April.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has been examining the proposal to supply a kilogram of tur dal, an equal amount of iodised salt and a litre of palm oil to every BPL ration card holder from the next financial year.

The move is estimated to cost the State government exchequer Rs 1,300 crore. The State has 1.06 crore BPL ration cards.

The State Food and Civil Supplies Department had estimated the cost when tur dal was Rs 75 per kg, but the price has shot up to Rs 100 per kg in the last few days.

The total cost of the department’s proposal will go up by about Rs 250 to Rs 300 crore, if tur is purchased at about Rs 100 per kg. And the price of the pulse is expected to further increase in the coming days, official sources in the department said.

The chief minister recently obtained the proposal from the department following a demand from his party legislators in this regard. The proposal is to supply tur dal at Rs 30 to Rs 35 per kg, palm oil at Rs 25 to Rs 30 per litre and salt at Rs 2 per kg to the beneficiaries every month. A litre of palm oil costs about Rs 54 in the market.

The department has planned to procure tur dal through online trading, while palm oil will be imported from Malaysia, the sources said.

Price to rise

President of Bangalore Wholesale Food Grains and Pulses Merchants Association, Ra-mesh Chandra Lahoti, said tur dal was in high demand this year due to very low yield across the country. The yield is only about 50 per cent in tur dal-growing States of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. In Karnataka, it is about 90 per cent. Hence, the price has been increasing.

Premium variety of tur dal costs Rs 90 per kg (at wholesale price), Rs 85 per kg for medium variety and Rs 80 per kg for economy variety. A kg of premium variety dal was available at Rs 75 per kg in March last year. “Traders from northern India are of late buying tur dal in large quantities from Karnataka. We expect the price to go up in April and May,” he said. Another proposal to restore the supply of rice to the Above Poverty Line (APL) card holders is estimated to cost Rs 380 crores per annum.

The department has estimated that the State has 19 lakh APL ration card holders.
About 13 lakh APL ration cards have been kept under suspension for not furnishing details of electoral photo identity cards (EPIC) to the department, the sources said.

When contacted, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said increase in the tur dal price in the open market was a matter of concern. The department has already submitted its proposal to the government. The chief minister will take an appropriate decision in this regard, he said.