In a major reprieve to the farmers especially the tenants tilling the land across the state, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today gave approval to amend the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 thereby adopting the formula of determining the rental value of the owned land as per actual market land rent to be evaluated by the Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana.Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister's Office said that the file to this effect has been cleared by Mr. Badal. t may be recalled that the Chief Minister had already taken up this issue with the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India (GoI) emphasizing for the need to evolve a methodological procedure to determine MSP. He apprised GoI that the provision in the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 to limit the land rent upto one third of value of the produce was made to protect the rights of the tenants and was no more relevant in view of abolition of tenancy. In the light of this the Chief Minister had given the nod amend the said Act to provide for market based land rent on actual basis keeping in view the recommendations of state Agriculture department, which had been duly forwarded to the Revenue department for amending the Act.
The Chief Minister pleaded that this amendment had become all the more important in the present context because the earlier provisions under the law were unrealistic and denied the right of remunerative MSP to the farmers. He hoped with the amended law the farmers especially the tenants would be richly benefitted as now the MSP would be calculated on the basis of actual market rent determined by the PAU.Pertinently, Punjab with mere 1.53 per cent of the geographical area of the country produces around 20% of wheat, 10% of rice and 10% of cotton production of the country. The state has contributed significantly to the national pool of food grains, making the country self-sufficient in food grains and food security. The assured procurement of food grains at Minimum Support Price has played a key role in this development. The farmers of the State have been demanding a review of the procedure to fix the MSP to make it remunerative and thereby improve the viability of farming.