Letters: Bail out farmers

With reference to “Farmers left in lurch as FCI suspends pulses procurement” (April 27), adequacy and immediacy of public procurement in accordance with the price support scheme is essential to improve buffer stock management and reduce farmers’ distress. It is observed that procuring pulses or food grains from farmers at the minimum support price (MSP) has been a daunting task for a nodal agency like the Food Corporation India (FCI). After the Decentralised Procurement Policy initiated in 1997-98, state procurement agencies have been entrusted with procurement operations. However, by and large small farmers remain “economically” and “socially” excluded from the benefits of the price support scheme.

A public-private partnership (PPP) model was proposed in 2014-15 as a corrective measure of ill-equipped food grains management by the FCI and state-designate agencies. The PPP model should thus undertake pulse procurement by replicating the direct benefit transfer prototype of wheat and paddy procurement such as e-Uparjan in Madhya Pradesh and the Procurement Automation System in Odisha. While technology-enabled procurement offers a real-time information flow, a PPP model can improve operational efficiency through scientific warehousing and optimising transportation network. Farmers need to be protected as they are seen to be less incentivised in the exchange process, and a PPP model can work for farmers’ inclusion in MSP-based procurement.

Kushankur Dey | Bhubaneswar

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