Pulses Mission turns one: pay farmers to leave paddy, and grow solar too

The news

New Delhi. On the first anniversary of the Mission for Aatmanirbharta in Pulses, a PIB backgrounder of 11 October reports pulse output of 274.09 lakh tonnes in 2025-26, up from 256.83 lakh tonnes, and imports down 31.52% to ₹31,793.59 crore. The Mission targets about 350 lakh tonnes, 1,130 kg/ha and 310 lakh hectares by 2030-31, focusing on tur, urad and masoor; NAFED and NCCF may buy 100% of these three crops from 2025-26 to 2028-29. In The Indian Express, Ashok Gulati of ICRIER argues that paddy in Punjab-Haryana gets input subsidies of almost ₹40,000 a hectare, so pulse and oilseed growers should get about ₹35,000, shared 50:50 by Centre and State, starting in Haryana, where the water table falls 1.7 feet a year. He also proposes agri-photovoltaics through a reworked PM-KUSUM.

Static syllabus linkage

1. MSP is recommended by the CACP and decided by a Cabinet committee. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices recommends MSPs for notified kharif and rabi crops; the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs decides. MSP is an administrative announcement, not a statutory right.
2. PM-KUSUM is the farm solar scheme agri-PV would ride on. Approved in 2019 and scaled up in November 2020 (PIB; MNRE), it has three parts: A lets farmers set up renewable plants of up to 2 MW on their land; B funds standalone solar pumps; C solarises grid-connected pumps. Central assistance under B and C is 30%, or 50% in the North-East, hill States and islands.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Do incentives, rather than advice, decide what Indian farmers grow?. GS3 lists “major crops, cropping patterns in various parts of the country” and “issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices”. Expect three dimensions: the incentives behind paddy, groundwater, and import dependence in pulses and edible oils.

Analysis

1. Diversification fails on risk, not on price. Farmers stay with paddy because its price and buyer are certain and the alternative’s are not. That is why the Mission’s promise of 100% procurement of tur, urad and masoor may matter more than its seed kits. Output rose to 274.09 lakh tonnes and imports fell 31.52% in the first year. The other view is that four years of assured purchase, to 2028-29, is a short window for a farmer changing a decades-old system. It holds: certainty must outlast one Mission cycle.
2. Lens — Short-term relief and long-term reform: pay for the shift with the subsidy it saves. Paddy draws almost ₹40,000 a hectare in power, fertiliser and canal subsidies, so a reward of about ₹35,000 for pulses or oilseeds would come from savings, not new spending. The catch: States save on power and the Centre on fertiliser, so a 50:50 split works only if each recovers its saving. The objection: paddy has other props, such as the plan to send almost 7 million tonnes of rice to ethanol, which Gulati calls “perverse”. A Haryana pilot paying only for verified hectares moved tests the idea cheaply.
3. Agri-PV can raise incomes faster than any crop switch, if the tariff is right. A farmer selling power from panels above his field earns a second income that does not depend on rain or price. Gulati reports an ICRIER pilot in Rajasthan that raised a farmer’s income eight to ten times. The objection is cost: raised structures are dearer than ground-mounted panels, and a distribution company must agree to buy the power. That is why his design detail, a feed-in tariff at even half the cost of supplying rural power, decides whether the idea spreads beyond a pilot.

Administrator's brainstorm