During Kharif season 2017-18, moong pulse would be cultivated over 147.5 thousand hectares and mash to be cultivate over 22.1 thousand hectares of land respectively, an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research said.

Talking to APP here on Tuesday, he said moong production targets were set at 120.6 thousand ton, where as about 11.3 thousand ton of mash pulse would be produced to tackle the domestic requirements of the leguminous vegetables.

Meanwhile, he said moong pulse yield per hectare was fixed at 817.6 kg and mash production per hectare was estimated at 511.3 kg during the period under review.

Giving the province wise details of the pulses production, he said about 131.1 thousand hectares of land to be put under moong cultivation to produce about 110 thousand ton of moong.

The moong would also be cultivated in 2 thousand hectares in Sindh and 7.5 thousand and 6.5 thousand hectares in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa respectively.

The production targets for both the province were fixed at 5 thousand and 4.6 thousand ton respectively, he added.

The mash pluses to be cultivated over an area of 17.4 and 0.2 thousand hectares respectively in Punjab and Sindh provinces and crop output were fixed at 7,000 and 1,000 ton.

Country imported about 175,250 metric ton of leguminous vegetables (pulses) worth U$122.549 million during the months of March, 2017 as compared against the imports of the same month of last year to fulfill the domestic consumption of pulses.

The pulses production targets were remained slightly bellow the fixed targets during the last season and government has devised a comprehensive plane to improve their production by introducing the high yield varieties in the country.