Is Kesari Dal Still Banned in India in 2026?

Last updated: 1 September 2026

Yes. Selling kesari dal as food remains prohibited under regulation 2.2.1 of India's food safety rules, and that prohibition has run without a break since 1961.

The widely repeated claim that India lifted the ban is wrong, and it comes from a real event misread. A committee recommended revoking it, and separately a 2021 amendment added a tolerance for kesari turning up inside other pulses. Neither touched the prohibition itself.

Which pulses is kesari actually mixed into?

Arhar, chiefly. FSSAI states it plainly in its guidance note on pulses and besan: the most dangerous adulteration in pulses is mixing kesari into arhar, since kesari is cheap and looks similar.

The second route is flour. The same document records that besan is often adulterated with flours of kesari, maize, rice or yellow pea.

Note what that does not say. Kesari is named as an adulterant of arhar in grain form and of besan in flour form, not of whole or split chana. The chana connection runs through the flour.

The economics behind it are agronomic. Kesari is drought resistant and grows on poor ground with little input, which makes it markedly cheaper than the pulses it can be passed off as. ICAR-IIPR records roughly 0.28 million hectares under the crop, concentrated in Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Bihar.

What does the prohibition actually say?

This prevents the selling, offering for sale and possession for sale of kesari gram, kesari dal and kesari dal flour as well as of any mixture of any of those with Bengal gram or other gram or dal or flour.

The wording appears in the present compendium of prohibition regulations and had been copied verbatim from Rule 44-A of the old Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, inserted in February 1961.

One small detail gets perpetually lost. The rule will apply in a state only after the state government announces the day in its own gazette. It is not a self-executing law in the country, which is exactly why the instances of its implementation are different in different states.

Two things it does not prohibit. Growing the crop is untouched, and ICAR actively works on it. Nor does the rule catch possession for cattle fodder, a point settled in court: what has to be shown is that the dal was meant for sale as human food.

Did the 2021 amendment lift the ban?

No. Rather than changing this prohibition, it has added an additional clause below it, with the clause referring to a different matter.

Clause 2.2.2, notified on 12 January 2021, sets the maximum allowed limit for any incidentally occurring khesari dal in grams and pulses at not more than 2%, including other edible grains.

Read the first three words. The clause opens "notwithstanding the condition at 2.2.1", which presupposes that 2.2.1 survives. It governs kesari occurring inside another pulse as a contaminant. It says nothing about kesari sold as itself.

So a bag of toor dal carrying a trace of kesari from the field is within tolerance. A bag of kesari dal is not thereby legal, and neither is a deliberate blend. Those are different transactions, and the regulation treats them differently.

There are two small clarifications that must be retained. The clause states "not more than 2%" without specifying by mass, and the term "grams" means gram pulses, not the weight unit.

Separately, the standard for cereals and pulses requires food grains to be free from argemone, maxicana and kesari in any form. Kesari is also absent from the twelve pulses that standard actually covers, so no product standard for it exists.

Can you spot kesari dal by looking at it?

Sometimes, and less reliably than the advice suggests. FSSAI describes it as having an edged type appearance, showing a slant on one side and square in appearance, in contrast to other dals.

That description holds up against toor. India's official varietal descriptors for pigeon pea offer only three seed shapes, oval, globular and elongate, with no angular option at all.

It is not applicable against chana. The government's chickpea descriptors list mentions that there are three approved chickpea seed shapes and among them is "angular." The claim that the angularity distinguishes kesari from chana contradicts an Indian regulatory document.

And FSSAI undercuts the visual test in the same breath it publishes it, since its stated reason the adulteration works at all is that kesari looks similar. Its own instruction asks for close examination, not a glance. Treat shape as a hint that something is off in a visibly mixed lot, not as a test.

What does the home acid test actually prove?

Less than its reputation. FSSAI publishes a colour test, adding dilute hydrochloric acid to the sample and holding it on simmering water for about fifteen minutes, where a pink colour indicates kesari.

The heating part is the entire procedure. According to FSSAI, metanil yellow, an illegal dye, will generate the same colour instantly without heating. A third substance acts in the same way: the same document's lead chromate check turns pink from a few drops of acid with no heat at all.

So pink by itself means very little. Pink only after fifteen minutes of simmering is the signal, and pink straight away points at a dye or a pigment instead.

The document in which this test is contained indicates that it has no legal force, and household manuals of FSSAI clearly state that these tests are not definitive and do not substitute for laboratory tests. Dilute hydrochloric acid is also not a kitchen reagent, and we are describing what the guidance says rather than recommending it.

The procedure in the laboratory is clear-cut. By means of paper chromatography, BOAA is extracted with the help of the official technique of FSSAI, resulting in a bluish-purple spot at an Rf value of about 0.1, which is found solely in the plant known as Lathyrus sativus.

How much kesari would it take to cause harm?

Far more than an occasional plate, sustained for months. The condition is neurolathyrism, an upper motor neuron disorder producing spasticity and weakness in the legs while leaving sensation intact. Once it begins it does not reverse, though it does not progress either.

The exposure that produces it is grass pea as a dominant share of a monotonous diet over a long period. A 2024 review puts it at diets containing at least 25% grass pea sustained for one and a half to six months.

Set that against measured Indian consumption. ICMR-NIN's survey in Gondia district found intake below 25 g a day, two old cases both over 50, and no fresh case across 105 households. A larger ICMR-NIN survey in Chhattisgarh clinically examined 17,755 people and found only nine old cases.

The honest position sits between the two stories told about this pulse. Neurolathyrism is real, irreversible and well documented in Indian famine history, with thousands of cases recorded in Rewa alone. It has also receded sharply, and the recent surveys find old cases rather than new ones.

SatRas sells whole green moong and desi black chana in its dal and chana range, and the SatRas FAQ page covers sourcing and pack sizes.

What these rules cannot tell you

How often adulteration actually happens. We could find no FSSAI surveillance report, state sampling dataset or published market survey quantifying how much kesari turns up in Indian arhar or besan. Prevalence is simply not measured in public, so anyone telling you it is rampant, or rare, is going beyond the evidence.

Nor is there an official Indian safe threshold for the toxin. The figures in circulation come from individual research papers rather than from ICMR, ICAR or FSSAI, and one 2024 review states that no defined safe threshold exists.

The surveys above also measure regions where the crop is grown and eaten openly. They describe consumption and disease, not covert adulteration of pulses sold elsewhere, and the two should not be read as the same measurement.

This article is educational and is not medical advice. If you are concerned about symptoms or about something you have eaten, speak to a qualified doctor.

Frequently asked questions

Is kesari dal the same as khesari or lakhori dal?

Yes. They are regional names for the same pulse, Lathyrus sativus. The regulation itself carries an explanation listing names across sixteen languages, including khesari and teora in Bengali and Assamese, lang in Gujarati, and lakheri, batri and lakh in Marathi. English sources call it grass pea or chickling vetch.

Is it legal to grow kesari dal in India?

Yes. The prohibition covers sale for human consumption, not cultivation, and ICAR runs an active research programme on the crop. Roughly 0.28 million hectares are under it, mostly in Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Bihar. Courts have also held that possessing it as cattle fodder is not an offence.

Does cooking remove the toxin?

It reduces it substantially but does not eliminate it. The compound is water soluble, so soaking and then discarding the water is the step that matters most. Published figures include around 57% removal after prolonged pressure cooking and roughly 90% when steeping, discarding the water and heating are combined.

Does the 2% limit mean 2% kesari is approved?

No. It is a contamination tolerance for kesari occurring incidentally in another pulse, not an approval to include it. A lot that is 2% kesari has not been authorised, it has merely fallen inside a limit. Selling kesari dal itself, or a deliberate mixture, remains prohibited under the clause above it.

Which states grow kesari dal?

Chhattisgarh has the largest area at about 0.15 million hectares, followed by West Bengal at 0.093 million and Bihar at 0.052 million. Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra also grow it. Historically it was eaten most where it grew, and by households with the fewest alternatives during drought and flood years.

Can a laboratory detect kesari when a home test cannot?

Yes, and by a different principle. Rather than looking for a colour, the official method identifies the amino acid BOAA, which occurs in Lathyrus sativus and not in other legume seeds. It appears as a bluish-purple spot at a specific position on a chromatogram, and a capillary electrophoresis method exists alongside it.