Pulses, an important constituent of food grains, play a vital role in food and nutritional security of millions of down trodden people of the world. Being an important source of protein, poor people mostly depends on pulses for meeting their daily requirements of this essential nutrient. Pulses will form a major source of protein for a huge section of Indian particularly, for the poor, backward classes of the traditionally vegetarian population (Reddy, 2004). But in reality, the net availability of pulses has come down from 61 to 37 gm/day/person and daily per capita consumption has come down from about 74 grams to 23 grams during the period 1960-61 to 2009-10 as against the ICMR norms of 40 gm/day/ person over the period 1950-51 to 2008-2009 in India. |
