In a semi-official letter to Goyal, he requested the Centre to allow import of peas with HSN Codes 07131010 (yellow peas), 07131020 (green peas) and 07131090 (other) through Thoothukudi sea port. He said this lifting of restriction on import of peas through Thoothukudi sea port would hardly affect the domestic market in northern states, which were broadly self-sufficient with in-house production of peas.

‘’I strongly recommend this case and request your favourable action,’’ he added.

He said the Director-General of Foreign Trade had, on December 18 last year, issued a public notification imposing a restriction on the import of peas to 1.5 Lakh MT for the entire country. Due to this restriction, the cost of peas has drastically increased to over Rs 65 per kg in Tamil Nadu.

‘’This ban has detrimentally affected the dhal and flour mills operating as MSME units in Tamil Nadu and, thereby, the livelihood of labourers and others who depend on this trade,’’Palaniswami said.

He said this restriction has also increased the demand and due to its shortage, the cost of green peas in Tamil Nadu has gone up. Drawing Goyal’s attention on the difficulties faced by the dhal and flour mills, falling under the MSME sector, he said peas, which were mainly used for preparation of traditional and region-specific snacks, were being cultivated in an area of 5.40 lakh hectares across India, with an annual estimated production of 54.22 lakh metric tonnes.

Peas cultivation is taken up in cooler regions and hence grown only in a smaller extent in Tamil Nadu, where especially green peas were cultivated in an extent of 120 Ha with production of about 1,960 MT.

The cultivation of peas, mainly as yellow peas, is confined to northern, central and north-eastern states of our country viz, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Assam etc. and are consumed mostly there itself. Since there was a heavy demand for peas, which was used for preparing the traditional snacks, in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, more than 1,000 micro, small and medium dhal and flour mills were functioning in the state for processing the peas and, thereby, providing direct employment opportunity to around 50,000 labourers and indirectly to over 65,000 persons.

The average requirement of peas in Tamil Nadu would be around two lakh metric tonne, of which maximum of 10,000 metric tonnes alone were being transported from the northern states.

Moreover, because of a heavy demand for peas in other states, cost of peas transported from the northern states after fulfilling their internal demand was very high and could range up to Rs 60 per kg.

Hence, peas were being imported from countries such as Australia, Canada, Russia etc. through Thoothukudi sea port at cheaper rates by the dhal and flour mills, Palaniswami said and urged Goyal to lift the restriction of peas through the Thoothukudi seaport.