Panelist expressed their views in a webinar on Chickpeas and Lentils organized by IPGA along with Pulse Australia and Austrade.
India Pulses and Grains Association (IPGA), the nodal body for India’s pulses trade and industry successfully co-hosted a webinar on Chickpeas and Lentils along with Pulse Australia and Austrade under the aegis of ‘THE IPGA KNOWLEDGE SERIES’.IPGA has organized this webinar as a part of the Australian Government’s Australia India Business Exchange (AIBX) program.
Panelists expressed hope that the Indian Government would revisit the Duty Structure on both pulses keeping in mind lower production and higher demand scenario prevailing in India.
Anurag Tulshan, Managing Director – Esarco Exim and IPGA’s East Zone Convenor giving an overview of India’s Lentils scenario said, “The current supply and demand situation is tight. The government needs to come forward and make some changes with regard to the duty structure, so as to get in more cargo because going forward, from the month of July until December 2021, we are going to need to import at least 500,000 tonnes of lentils.”
The Indian overview on Lentils was presented by Anurag Tulshan, Managing Director – Esarco Exim and IPGA – East Zone Convenor and Australian overview by Nick Poutney, Director – Pulse Australia. The overview on Indian Chickpeas was presented by Nirav Desai, Managing Partner – GGN Research and Australian overview by Peter Wilson, Managing Director – Wilson International Trade. The webinar was attended by about 600 participants from across the world with majority being from India and Australia.
Saurabh Bhartia, Senior Trader, Viterra India, IPGA and GPC Executive Committee Member set the tone for the webinar in his opening remarks saying, “The share of Australian lentils in India’s import has been 10-15 percent over the last seven-eight years and almost 80-90 percent of its chickpeas’ requirements came from Australia till December 2017. However, the 66 percent import duty imposed by Government of India has made it difficult to import from Australia resulting in these imports dropping to almost zero. In 2021, all pulses in India are trading above minimum support price and government stocks have hit a low. Both show we definitely have issues in our production of pulses in the last Kharif and Rabi seasons.”
