Badal flays Centre for inadequate hike in MSP of paddy and cotton

by Punjabnewswire4u
CHANDIGARH, JUNE 28

Slamming the Centre for inadequate hike in the MSP of paddy and cotton by just Rs. 60 and Rs. 100 per quintal against the demand of Rs. 1800 and Rs. 4674 per quintal raised by the state government, the Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal described it as “a retrograde step to rob the farmers of genuine margins of profit thereby making the plight of already distressed farmers from bad to worst”.

 It may be recalled that the Union Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved a hike of Rs.60 and Rs. 100 in the MSP of paddy and cotton to Rs. 1310 and Rs. 3700 per quintal respectively for the current kharif marketing season on Thursday.

In a statement, Mr. Badal said that this move of Congress led UPA government would further demoralize the farmers as the agriculture was no more a profitable venture due to squeezed margins owing to constant hike in the cost of agricultural inputs like diesel, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides etc. thereby further accentuating the woes of the beleaguered farmers. Equating this decision as anti-farmer and cruel joke with the peasantry, Mr. Badal said UPA government had not only rubbed salt into the wounds of the farmers by doing so but also gave a major setback to the hardworking and resilient farming community which could put our national food security in peril.

Making a dig at the Centre, Mr. Badal accused the UPA government of double speak because at one instance it was forcing Punjab to go for crop diversification in a big way and on the other it was deliberately denying the farmers of their justified right of remunerative MSP on the alternative crops like cotton, maize and Basmati. The Chief Minister said he had personally taken up the issue of ensuring permanent procurement mechanism for these crops with the Union Agriculture Minister Mr. Sharad Pawar and the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh several times to motivate the farmers of the state for the cultivation of cotton, maize and Basmati with the focused approach towards crop diversification as well as to save them from the sheer exploitation of the farmers at the hands of the traders due to lack of assured marketing facility. He also revealed the state government had already demanded MSP of Rs. 1700 and Rs. 3500 per quintal for maize and basmati.

The Chief Minister said, “Centre should have atleast repaid a bit of the debt owed towards it due to immense contribution of Punjab farmers in making our country self sufficient in food production by conceding our rightful demand through fixing the MSP of these crops in accordance with the rationale based on the facts compiled by a team of agricultural experts and economists of PAU.”  Mr. Badal said that it was the high time for the Centre to awake from deep slumber in order to fix the MSP by providing a margin of 50% over the cost of production to the farmers as suggested by the country’s leading agricultural expert Dr. MS Swaminathan.