As the families struggle to maintain balanced diet in view of sky-rocketing prices of pulses, CRISIL research, in a report, has said that this price-rise has been the sharpest in a decade. According to the global analytics company while all food components were seeing a decline in inflation, pulses inflation saw the sharpest spike.

In October, the CPI and WPI inflation for pulses was 42 percent and 53 percent respectively. The overall food inflation this fiscal, meanwhile, has come down to 4.1 percent from 7.6 percent in the same period last fiscal. In the last decade, while overall WPI inflation rate fell to 6.3 percent, pulses inflation has been much higher at 9.4 percent on an average.

“Such high inflation rate in pulses is undesirable for a country where pulses are second most important part of diet after cereals and an average Indian spends nearly 5% of his food expenditure on pulses,” CRISIL research said.

The report highlights increasing apprehension of farmers in growing pulses. “A high fluctuation in prices has meant that farmers are seldom sure of getting stable returns. This may have led to large-scale substitution of area under pulses cultivation with other high-value crops that give comparatively higher returns.”

“Pulses are highly risk-prone because most of the production is rain-dependent. Barely 16% of total pulses area is covered by irrigation and, hence, the crop is highly vulnerable to monsoon shocks,” the report said.

Governance Now has reported on reasons behind price-rise of pulses, and an on-ground report on its impact on daily expenditures of the masses:

Why your dal is so costly

"Urad dal and moong dal are Rs 200 a kilo. Is that development?"