Indore: The imposition of the mandi tax on supply of pulses brought from other states has adversely hit the pulses market and their processing units in the city. About 50% units have shut down while rates of the split pulses have moved by Rs 4 to Rs 5 per quintal.
There are more than 200 pulses processing units in the city, which are located in Palda, Naulakha and Sajaan Nagar. The production of masoor, mung and tuar is less in the state. As a result, owners of processing units bring pulses from other states for which they have to pay 1 percent mandi on every quintal to MP government. This escalates their production cost.
The mandi tax on split pulses is zero percent in MP. The split pulses arrive from surrounding states on which there is no mandi tax. Thus, the pulses processing units have been left with very little work.
Indore resident Suresh Agrawal, who is president of All India Dal Mill Association, expressed dismay over state government’s apathetic attitude. “Since January 2017, we are repeatedly telling the state government specially chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan about the losses incurred by pulses processing units. But they just gave us assurance and ignored our demand. We demand withdrawal of 1% mandi tax,” he said.
The pulses processed in areas like Jalgoan and Dahod, which are almost 250 to 300 km away from the city, are available in local market and at cheaper rate. “All this has hit pulses processing units badly,” Agrawal said.