by Punjabnewswire4u
CHANDIGARH, NOV 3
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today out rightly rejected Minimum
Support Price (MSP) of cotton announced by the centre describing it as
'woefully inadequate and unjustified', Mr Badal demanded its re-fixation
at Rs 4420 per quintal to offset the recent massive increase in the farm
inputs.
It may be recalled that the GoI had on Friday fixed Rs 3600 as
MSP of short staple cotton, Rs 3900 as MSP of long staple cotton and the MSP of
cotton produced in Punjab was fixed at Rs 3800
per quintal.
In a statement here, the Chief Minister said that the MSP of Rs
3800 per quintal on cotton, which was normally produced in Punjab,
for the current Rabi marketing season was much below the expectation of the
farmers and termed it as a cruel joke with the already distressed cotton
growers. The Chief Minister said that the non-remunerative
MSP coupled with anti-farmer policies of Centre was primarily responsible for the slow down of the agricultural
growth.
He said that his government had been constantly pleading the case of Punjab's
beleaguered peasantry that was in shambles
and demanded MSP of at least Rs.4420/- per quintal of cotton from the Government of India to give much needed boost to the
cotton production in the Malwa belt thereby motivating the farmers to go for
crop diversification. Mr Badal lamented that it was a paradoxical situation that the MSP announced by the centre
was far below the price at which the country had
been importing cotton from various countries adding that there was hardly any
justification to deprive the localcotton growers of the same price.
The Chief Minister rued that the Cotton Corporation of India
(CCI) was not providing price support operations aggressively in all the 45
mandis across the state which resulted in the exploitation of cotton growers as
they were subjected to distress sale of even Rs 3600 per quintal which was
below the market price. He pointed out that CCI was operating merely in 27
designated mandis and centre had so far paid no heed to our repeated requests
to direct it to operate all the mandis to ensure remunerative returns to the
farmers. Mr Badal also apprehended that the prices were likely to be depressed
further when the arrival starts peaking up during the months of December and
January. He said that it was unfortunate that the prevailing market
prices of cotton were much below then the prices received by the farmers two
years ago when it ranged between Rs 5500 to 6500 per quintal.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal who is
also the President of Shiromani Akali Dal rejected the MSP of cotton and
demanded it to be refixed at Rs 4420 per quintal as demanded by the Punjab government.
Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal pointed out that the Congress led UPA
government’s ruthless action to decimate the farming community spoke
volumes of complete insensitivity and its apathetic attitude
towards the plight of these hapless farmers who were already reeling under
the huge pressure of mounting debt on one hand and diminishing
returns due to exorbitant cost of agricultural inputs incurred by them on
diesel, fertilizers, pesticides etc, on the other. He said that the Centre should have at least appreciated the
ground realities in a holistic manner to provide a level playing
field to the cotton growers, rather rubbing salt into their wounds by
announcing this unreasonable and un-realistic hike in the price of cotton at
a point of time whenthe MSP was not commensurate with the ever increasing costs
of agricultural inputs. The Centre should have
taken into account the enormous contribution of
Punjabi farmers to make our country self sufficient in food production to
ensure national food security before announcing this unreasonable
hike in MSP of cotton.Instead of rewarding them with remunerative MSP, the
ingratitude Centre has actually demoralized them by making
the agriculture a non-profitable occupation due to its wrong and
arbitrary policies, added Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal.
