Chana gained Rs 18 and settled at Rs 4650 per quintal on slack spot supplies, inadequate stocks and on hopes local demand would improve ahead of the festive season. Demand for chana usually rises during the rainy season due to lower availability of fresh vegetables and the upcoming festive season that begins next month. A pick-up in the monsoon could aid sowing of summer-sown pulses. India's monsoon rains have improved and are likely to cover the entire country. India's annual monsoon rainfall has improved in the past 10 days, speeding up sowing of key summer-sown crops like rice and cotton. Weak monsoon rains could hit the sowing of summer-sown pulses such as pigeon peas or tur, black matpe or urad and green gram or moong. Chana is a winter crop whose sowing begins in October and extends to December. Chana production is expected to fall by 6.8% to 7.40 mln tonnes as compared to 8.22 mln tonnes last year. As per Rajasthan farm department's first advance estimates for Rabi crops, Chana output is estimated down 7.8% at 14.76 lakh tonnes in 2011-12 season vs 16 lakh tonnes in 2010-11. Output in Maharashtra in 2011-12 is seen down 42% at 7.5 lakh tn, while Karnataka's 2011-12 output is seen at 4.98 lakh tn compared to 6 lakh tn last year. In Delhi spot market, chana jump up by 0.9 rupee to end at 4620 rupee per 100 kgs. The volume was noted at 148900 lots. Support for chana is at 4591 below that could see a test of 4531. Resistance is now seen at 4704 above that could see a resistance of 4757.

Trading Ideas:

Chana trading range for the day is 4531-4757.

Chana rose on slack spot supplies, inadequate stocks and on hopes local demand would improve.

Demand for chana usually rises during rainy season due to lower availability of fresh vegetables and the upcoming festive season

NCDEX accredited warehouses chana stocks dropped by 368 tonnes to 83042 tonnes.

In Delhi spot market, chana jump up by 0.9 rupee to end at 4620 rupee per 100 kgs.