The Gujarat Cooperative Milk and Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has been appointed as the sole selling agent for the sales and distribution of Sugam Shakti. The dal is an extruded product rich in proteins and developed in Anand.

The move is aimed at meeting the huge demand-supply gap of around 30 per cent that currently exists due to unavailability of low-priced dals in the country.

Sugam Shakti dal will be priced at Rs 20 per kg, 15-20 per cent cheaper than the price of pulse available in the market. The dal will be packed in HDPE paper-laminated 25 kg bags and sold through wholesale dealers and retailers in bulk loads of a minimum 10 metric tonne.

According to GCMMF's manager (marketing) Jayen S Mehta, the `Dal Analogue Project' is a result of the Government of India's request to NDDB to come up with an intervention sothat the gap in supply and demand for pulse proteins could be met by providing a stabilising effect on prices throughout the year, since the price of pulses tends to fluctuate considerably.

Says GCMMF's assistant general manager, marketing, RS Sodhi: ``Once the initial consumer response is ascertained, we also intend to tap the consumer pack market segment by coming out in 1/2 kg, 1 kg and even 5 kg take-away packs.'' Currently, the product is in the test-market stage.

Sugam Shakti is supposed to be a fat-free, high-protein product (protein content 31 per cent compared to natural tur dal's 21 per cent), prepared out of wheat flour and edible de-fatted soya flour in a 50:50 ratio. In addition, it has moisture content of 8 per cent and oil content of 1 per cent. It also has 0.2 per cent turmeric.

Says Mehta: ``Sugam Shakti is an extruded product. The ingredients are mixed in a pre-conditioner and fed into the extruder where it is subjected to shear and compression to form a dough which then passesthrough twin dies and is cut into small chips like tur dal granules."

This precooked dal is meant to augment the availability of proteins for human consumption in the country and partly solve the problem of increasing gap between demand and supply with respect to pulses, especially tur dal.