The Gujarat Government will commence the procurement for pigeon pea (tur), chickpea (chana) and mustard at the centrally-decided minimum support price (MSP) rates from March 10.
The one-month window for online registration to participate in the procurement process will open from February 1, the State government informed. The procurement for the three farm produces will continue for 90 days starting March 10 with daily estimated procurement of around 625 quintals. The State Agriculture Minister Raghavji Patel informed that a high-level meeting was held with senior officials of the agriculture department and it was decided to commence procurement of the said crops. The procurement for tur will take place from 135 centres, while for chana procurement will happen from 187 centres and mustard procurement will happen from 103 procurement centres across the State. The Central government has fixed the MSP for tur at ₹6,600 per quintal, for chana it is ₹5,335 and ₹5,450 for mustard. Notably, in the spot market tur and mustard prices hovered above MSP, while chana prices remained below the support price levels. Tur quoted in the range of ₹5,500-7,400 per quintal with arrivals of 1,200 quintals on Friday at Rajkot APMC. Mustard prices were higher than MSP at ₹5,600. Chana, on the other hand, remained below the MSP in the range of ₹4,630-4,725 per quintal with arrivals of 330 quintals. For 2022-23, the second advance estimate of the Gujarat government projects tur output at 2,91,000 tonnes, chana output at 15,50,000 tonnes and 6,39,000 tonnes.