NITI Aayog to devise mechanism to fix MSP of crops

The NITI Aayog is reportedly working on devising a mechanism for the implementation of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for different agricultural crops.

In this regard, a consultation meeting of the body was held, wherein the Vice Chairman of the government's think tank, Rajiv Kumar, stated that it was the responsibility of the states in efficiently implementing the schemes.

Furthermore, Kumar announced that it was decided to modify the concepts quickly on the basis of suggestions of the states and finalise the mechanism by March end.

In a bid to provide a much-needed impetus to the agriculture sector, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while announcing the Union Budget 2018-19 had announced that the MSP for all crops would be increased to 1.5 times of the production cost.

Following up from this, the Union Cabinet last week doubled state purchases of oilseeds and pulses from farmers and approved the regularisation and extension of government guarantee provided to lender banks for providing credit limit to National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED).

The limit was extended to Rs 19,000 crore from the earlier limit of Rs 9,500 crore for undertaking procurement operation of pulses and oilseeds under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) and to the Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) for Rs 45 crore for meeting their existing liability and settlement of extant claims.