Vol. 10, Issue 12 (2021)

Agriculture and allied industry have been traditionally viewed as two separate sections both in terms of their characteristics and role in economic development. Agro-processing industry is the largest determinant of gross national production in our country with a 19% share; it occupies fifth position in the industry output. India accounts about 33 percent of the world area and 25 percent of the world production of pulse. Pigeon pea, Mung bean, Urd bean and (field pea) Gram are important pulse crops contributing 21 percent, 11 percent, 10 percent and 5 percent, of total production of pulses in country.

The attempts have made to study the economic evaluation of dal mills in Marathwada region with the following specific objective-To study the value addition by agro-processing industries in various Pulse crops. To fascinate analysis of data, the sample dal mills were divided into two size groups. Viz. Small-Medium (Group I) group and Large (Group II) size group range as 30 - 300 quintal, 300 - 400 quintal raw pulse per day respectively. Out of 32 sample dal mills, 16 were Small-Medium (Group I) size group and 16 were Large (Group II) size group distributed.

The above table shows that, the average break-even point is 0.071 quintal, consisting of 0.078 quintal for Group I sized of dal mills and 0.064 quintal for Group II sized dal mil. The annual fixed cost of Group I and Group II sized dal mills were ₹.15.81 and ₹.19.98 respectively. So the average annual fixed cost is 17.89. The per quintal gross return of Group I sized dal mill was 463.41 and of Group II sized dal mill was 788.89. The per quintal variable cost was ₹.260.91 and ₹.477.83 for of Group I and Group II sized dal mills respectively.

Among different sized groups, the per dal mills total cost of pulse processing was ₹. 276.72 lakhs and ₹.497.81lakhs per year for Group I and Group II sized dal mills respectively. Thus the overall total cost was ₹. 387.26 lakhs per year. Out of which, the raw material cost of group I sized dal mill was ₹. 213.30 lakhs and ₹. 397.04 lakhs for group II dal mills. Thus the processing cost so obtained by subtracting raw material cost from total cost was ₹. 63.42 lakhs of Group I dal mill and ₹. 100.77 lakhs for Group II dal mills. Thus at overall level the processing cost was ₹. 82.09 lakhs.

In respect of gross returns which is obtained from final produce i.e. dal and by-produce i.e. chunni and shortage, estimated as ₹.463.41 lakhs and ₹. 788.89 lakhs under Group I and Group II sized dal mills respectively. In this way the overall gross returns was ₹. 626.15 lakhs. The gross margin was calculated by subtracting total cost from gross returns. Hence the value obtained on overall level was ₹. 238.89 lakhs, contributing to ₹. 186.69 lakhs for Group I sized dal mill and ₹. 291.08 lakhs for Group II sized dal mill. Thus on overall basis the value addition was ₹. 320.98 lakhs, consisting of ₹.250.11 lakhs for Group I and ₹. 391.85 lakhs for Group II dal mills.