India is the largest Producer and Consumer of Chickpeas in World

Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its latest report for 2011 claimed that India is the largest consumer and producer of Chickpeas in the world. The second advance estimates for 2012-13 marked a record production of Chickpea is 8567.8 thousand tonnes.

Production details of Chickpeas in India as compared to the World Chickpea producing nation:

Systematic and concentrated research on Chickpeas is undertaken by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through its on-going plan projects under Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), Kanpur and All India Coordinated Research Project on Chickpea. In past three years, thirteen types of high yielding varieties of chickpeas have been released in India.

Creation of basic and strategic research for development of location specific climate supporting high yielding chickpea varieties and improved production and protection technologies are the major steps included in the research program.

Several Crop development schemes like Food Security Mission (NFSM-Pulses), Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and others are implemented by the Government of India in order to increase the production and productivity of Pulses including Chickpeas. Special Plan to achieve more than 19 million tonnes of pulse production during 2012-13 has also been initiated.