Worker shortage, high prices of pulses hit dal mills

Shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workforce amid wedding season has posed a challenge for the dal mills of Madhya Pradesh with many forced to cut down on shifts and working hours while high pulses prices hit demand. Many dal mills of Indore have reduced the working hours due to lack of availability of labours to run operations.
Dal miller Sujay Kabra running a chana processing unit in Indore said, “Retail demand for chana dal is encouraging as availability of the raw material and quality is good but we are not able to utilize the full capacity owing to shortage of workers. The absenteeism of workers in the wedding season has increased and this is hampering operations in industries.”
Dal millers said, it has become difficult to get skilled and semi-skilled workers for factories and those available charge exponentially.

Another miller from the Palda Industrial area said, “I got two new workers on Monday and assigned them the work. After half day, they left to attend some family function and refused to work. Processing of dals is getting hampered due to labour shortage.”
Madhya Pradesh is a major center for dal mills with around 700 dal mills in the state of which 160 in Indore.

Industry players said, low supplies of most pulses in the market and high prices have hit retail demand in tur and urad. December to March is the peak dal processing period when new season harvest arrives in the market.

“Retail demand in tur has dropped because prices are very high. In retail, tur is priced at Rs 190-200 per kg due to decline in supplies. Moong is also trading high but with the new season summer harvest, prices may come down,” said Kabra.

This article has been republished from The Times of India.