Badal seeks higher Minimum Support Price for wheat

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal Thursday asked the central government to hike the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for wheat for the forthcoming season.

He argued that the enhanced Rs.1,450 per quintal price for wheat could not even cover expenses incurred by farmers.

In a statement issued here after the central government hiked the wheat MSP by only Rs.50 per quintal, Badal said the M.S. Swaminathan formula for fixing the MSP should be implemented immediately.

According to this formula, farmers should get an MSP which should cover production costs plus 50 percent of these costs to be paid to the farmer, a Punjab government spokesman said here.

Badal advocated the need for adopting and implementing "aggressively pro-agriculture and pro-farmer policies to offset the negative effects of the agrarian crisis brought upon the economy in general and farmers in particular".

"Considering market realities and the overall price index in the country, wheat price of Rs.1,450 could not even cover the expenses incurred by farmers. The MSP thus must be hiked to the level where the mismatch between input costs of agriculture produce and MSP announced for these is removed," Badal said.

The chief minister said that MSP should be announced well before the start of the sowing season so that farmers could decide which crops they should sow.

"At present, there is a serious disconnect between the needs of the farmers on the one hand and priorities of governments on the other. This disconnect, which has lasted nearly seven decades since independence, must be ended," he said.

The agrarian state of Punjab contributes over 50 percent of food grain, wheat and rice, to the national kitty despite having just 1.54 percent of the country's geographical area.