The Congress on Thursday said the Narendra Modi government’s promise to set up a committee on the minimum support price system had turned out false, citing a Niti Aayog member’s call for a rethink on the MSP regime.
The Centre had during the yearlong farmer agitation against three now-repealed farm laws promised a committee to make the MSP system more effective and transparent. The farmers had demanded legally guaranteed MSPs on all crops.
Referring to Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand’s statement, the Congress said it would extend support to the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of farmer associations that had spearheaded the 2020-21 agitation, in its fight against the government’s unfulfilled promises.
The SKM has announced nationwide protests from July 18, alleging that none of the written assurances given by the government had been honoured despite the passage of seven months. The farmers had ended their agitation after Prime Minister Modi announced the withdrawal of the farm laws last November.
The SKM is now seething as the committee on MSP has not been formed, nor have the allegedly false cases registered against the farmers during the agitation been withdrawn.
No action has been taken, either, against junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni whose son is accused of crushing four farmers and a journalist under the wheels of his father’s car in Lakhimpur Kheri last October.
“Niti Ayog member Ramesh Chand has said the government should rethink the way MSP is currently being provided to farmers and proposed the deficiency price payment (DPP) system as an alternative to the procurement of crops from mandis at MSP. He earlier said that legalising the MSP will spell doom,” Congress spokesperson Deepender Hooda said.
MSP is a minimum price at which the government procures certain crops from the farmers. Under the DPP system, the government does not procure crops but pays the farmers the difference between the MSP and the price in the open market.
“On March 28, the government had asked the SKM for names to be included in the committee on MSP. When the farmers asked about the terms of reference, the government didn’t respond,” Hooda said.
He argued the government was never serious about forming the committee on MSP.
“Does anybody in the government now talk of doubling the farmers’ income? They promised to double their income by 2022 and now they have forgotten it,” Hooda said.
“They have doubled the input cost for farming, working on a strategy to hand over the agriculture trade to crony capitalists. The country is now staring at a serious wheat crisis, with the buffer stock this year being the lowest in 15 years. Viewed in terms of per capita availability, it is the lowest in 50 years.”
Hooda explained: “Last year the procurement of wheat was 43.34 million tonnes. This year’s target was 50 million tonnes; but the procurement is merely 18 million tonnes.
“The government knew the international price of wheat had shot up to Rs 3,500 per quintal because of the Ukraine war, and allowed three big Indian companies to make money by exporting 10 million tonnes. The farmers didn’t gain out of the crisis and the higher international prices -- they got Rs 2,000 per quintal -- and now the country is faced with the wheat crisis.”
Hooda said the stocks of wheat for the states had been whittled down, and that even the BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat were demanding more wheat.
Hooda demanded immediate constitution of the promised MSP committee and a white paper on the wheat crisis, with public disclosure on who had made a killing from wheat export when the nation was grappling with a crisis.
Party communications chief Jairam Ramesh too tweeted on the wheat crisis, saying: “The Vish-guru allowed the export of Covid vaccines without application of mind and now wheat is exported despite domestic crisis.”
Ramesh argued that the GST on essentials, coupled with the wheat crisis, would create problems for the poor.