{"id":32944,"date":"2018-10-29T17:37:53","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=32944"},"modified":"2018-10-29T17:37:53","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:07:53","slug":"missing-the-pulse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/missing-the-pulse\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing\u00a0the\u00a0pulse:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/editorial\/missing-the-pulse\/article22261351.ece\">Missing\u00a0the\u00a0pulse<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Farmers, like investors, need predictability and coherence in government policies<\/p>\n<p><strong>What has happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A 30% customs duty has been slapped on the import of Chana dal and Masoor dal<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why, this move?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cheap imports could hit farm incomes especially at a time when domestic production of pulses is at a record high and a bumper rabi crop is expected<\/li>\n<li>With an adequate domestic stockpile of pulses and with international prices remaining low for a prolonged period, the Centre fears that traders may still prefer to import some pulses rather than buy the fresh crop from local farmers at higher prices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Situation wrt pulses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Upsurge in imports<\/strong>: There has been a significant upsurge in imports, in the range of 30% to 46%, in four out of the first six months of this financial year<\/li>\n<li>The value of chana imports in this period rose 373%, while masoor grew 204% year on year<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key contributors<\/strong>: Chana and masoor were the key contributors for India\u2019s pulses imports rising to over $1.6 billion between April and September, compared to $1.2 billion in the same period last year<\/li>\n<li>In September, masoor imports shrank 56% in value terms while chana imports grew by a little over 200%<\/li>\n<li>Disaggregated data for the last two months are not available, but overall pulses imports have cooled off since September, with total pulses imports shrinking nearly 30% in October and about 38% last month<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Author\u2019s contention<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Author points out that the real issue is reflexively raising or breaking such tariff walls, as the production cycle warrants which doesn\u2019t add up to a serious long-term policy, aimed at boosting farm incomes and ensuring food security. In the case of a key protein source like pulses, import duties may be counterproductive going forward<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why this recent move is not sound?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Threat to dal diplomacy: <\/strong>India has dal diplomacy interests with more than 40 other countries, for whom the latest move will be of concern, especially since there is already 10% import duty on toor dal and a hefty 50% duty was levied on yellow peas in November<\/li>\n<li><strong>Predictability is good<\/strong>: Farmers, like investors, need predictability and coherence in government policies<\/li>\n<li><strong>Duty hike is counterproductive<\/strong>: Just as a duty hike on electronic goods won\u2019t directly prop up local manufacturing or curb their consumption, hiking import duties on one dal or another won\u2019t make farmers better-off \u2014 though traders who accumulated cheaper imports will benefit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Missing\u00a0the\u00a0pulse: Context Farmers, like investors, need predictability and coherence in government policies What has happened? A 30% customs duty has been slapped on the import of Chana dal and Masoor dal\u00a0 Why, this move? Cheap imports could hit farm incomes especially at a time when domestic production of pulses is at a record high and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/missing-the-pulse\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Missing\u00a0the\u00a0pulse:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}