Badal Flays Centre For Meager Hike In MSP Of Paddy By Rs.170
Blames Centre For Double Speak On Diversification Of Agriculture
5 Dariya News
Chandigarh 15-Jun-2012
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today slammed the Centre for the recent hike in the MSP of Paddy (Common) and (Grade ‘A’) varieties, which had been fixed at Rs.1250 and Rs.1280 per quintal respectively, which represents an increase of Rs.170 per quintal over the last year’s MSPs and described the ‘Centre’s deliberate attempt to rob the farmers of genuine margins consequently the agriculture continues to be a non-profitable venture and the plight of farmers is turning from worse to worst’. In a statement, Badal said that this hike spoke volumes of Congress led UPA government’s complete insensitivity and its apathetic attitude towards the plight of the beleaguered farmers who were already in distress due to low returns on their produce despite exorbitant cost of agricultural inputs incurred by them on diesel, fertilizers, pesticides etc. Terming this insignificant hike as a cruel joke with the farming community, Badal said that the Centre should have appreciated the ground realities in a holistic manner to provide a level playing field to the farmers, rather adding to their woes with this unreasonable and un-remunerative hike in the prices of Paddy at a point of time when the MSP was not commensurate with the ever increasing costs of agricultural inputs. It may be recalled that the state government had suggested a MSP of Rs.1600 and Rs.1665 per quintal for these varieties respectively to the Centre. Badal also criticized Centre for announcing MSP of Rs.1175 per quintal for Maize against Rs.1500 per quintal demanded by the state government. The Chief Minister said that the Centre had also announced the MSP of Cotton (both medium & long staple) between Rs.3600 and Rs.3900 per quintal which was also below the MSP of Rs.4420 per quintal as demanded by us. He said; “It is paradoxical that on one hand Centre is asking Punjab farmers to adopt persification of agriculture by coming out of the rut of Paddy-Wheat rotation while on the other it is constantly denying them their legitimate right of remunerative MSP”. He asked the Centre to be honest and fair while deciding the issues relating to peasantry rather politicking, otherwise the UPA government would have to pay heavy price for its anti-farmer stance in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2014. The Chief Minister further said that Centre should had realized the immense contribution of Punjab farmers to make our country self reliant in food production to ensure national food security. He said instead of rewarding them with remunerative MSP, the Centre had actually demoralized them by announcing a meager hike of Rs.170 per quintal on paddy during the Kharif 2012-13 seasons, thereby making the agriculture a non-viable profession due to its irrational and arbitrary policies. Badal said that it was the high time for the Centre to wake up 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 an agricultural expert Dr. MS Swaminathan.