New Delhi: As high prices of pulses continue to hurt consumers, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the rates will come down soon in view of good harvest and action taken against hoarders.
With government under attack from opposition parties on the issue, Jaitley said that retail inflation has come to down to about 4 per cent from 12 per cent since the Congress went out of power last year.
He suggested that the prices of pulse grew also because proper action was not taken by states against the hoarders.
"The rate of inflation has come down in last one and half year. Prices of many commodities have come down. But there are some products, whose arrival is less in the Indian market as well as foreign markets. The requirement of pulses is 22 million tonne in India. We increased the production up to 17 million tonne but still we are short of 5 million tonne production," Jaitley said at an event here.
"Most of the countries from where we used to import pulses have also recorded low production. Some traders took benefit from it and hoarded the commodity. It was the state governments' responsibility to take action and carry out raids," he said.
With intervention of the Centre and states in last few days, a large number of raids have been carried out against the hoarders prices of pulse have come down somewhat, he said.
Read Also: Why Tur Dal is Rs 200/kg and why it will be as much in 2016
He added that as a result of the raids both kinds of the pulses arhar or tur dal have come out in the market.
"Pulses from the Rabi crop have also started coming. There is also arrival of pulses in international market," he said expressing hope that the yield of the next harvest is expected to be better, which will further bring down the prices.
He said that in almost all states, the price of pulse has started becoming moderate in last five seven days and it is being sold at Rs 120 per kg in Safal shops in Delhi.
Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for skyrocketing prices of pulses with arhar dal costing more than Rs 200 a kg, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had yesterday said in Patna, "Earlier people used to chant 'Har har Modi' and now they chant 'Arhar Modi'... People are saying forget 'Achche din' (BJP's pre-Lok Sabha slogan) and return our 'Purane din' (old days).
