Reason behind sudden increase in prices of pulses in India

Pulse price rise was the near certain result this year the market was sure of.
Reason: Well, before we conclude the actual reason for it, we must first see something: the distribution of pulse production in India:

you see, the Top-3: thats

• Madhya pradesh
• UP
• Maharashtra

and all the above mentioned are one's that are rain dependent.

according to this year stats, rainfall in peninsular India was near normal, but was 26% deficient in central India. (Performance of Southwest Monsoon from June 1 to September 28),
so anyone can conclude easily that production in these state was less and thus due to fall in supply, prices rose.
Conclusion: partially correct but just 20% of actual reason of  price rise.

now we come to actual reason:
Normal annual consumption of India: 3-4 million tonnes.
this year shortfall: about 11%.

and that leaded to supply diminishment, but how ??

1. lack of bureaucratic activity: prices don't rise when there is less production (upto a certain limit), prices rise when there is shortening of supply in the market,
government is importing pulses, has made imports to zero duty, have banned exports now,
but had actually been the officials been tracking production and prices, and ensured year-along smooth supplies by following above methods earlier, prices wouldn't have reached here.


2. Difference between hoarders and stockists:
Crops in which harvesting is concentrated to 1-3 month window but consumption is throughout year, there are some people who store it in additional amounts to keep supplies round the year (that is why warehouses and cold storages made), 
the day stocking limit is imposed, legal stockist become hoarder overnight in which some of whom maintain private warehouses, 
Forcing them to offload stocks will certainly bring immediate relief to the markets, but what will happen to supply in subsequent months, nobody knows leading to more price rise later (as there will be not much stocking left at that time and imports will have to be increased, however november harvests will give some relief),
this strategy also discourages investment in warehousing facilities leading to chances of market collapse.

3. Suspension of  future/forwards market: which gives signals of likely future prices (on contention that some traders collude and rig the market) and can actually help government to take pre-emptive measures.
so, no future anticipation = no preparedness = high prices suddenly on shortfall reports.



last, but most important,
 a question: if rain was short, why wasn't prices of rice or wheat rose?
because we have buffer stock (an extra amount stored for emergency purposes) for rice and wheat, but we don't have one for pulses, this was the biggest reason why prices rose because then government had no way to stabilize the prices of pulses in the market by offloading some stock and control the prices by increasing supplies.