Criticising successive governments at the Centre for their improper implementation of the price support scheme, the Akhil Bharat Raitha Sangharsh Samiti, a conglomerate of farmers’ organisations, has demanded the government come up with a law that would make scientific Minimum Support Price (MSP) for farm produce mandatory.
Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Maruti Manpade, leader of the Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha, said that that the proposed law should be based on the recommendations of M.S. Swaminathan-led national commission on farmers.
“No government is consistent on offering MSP to farm produces. There is no legal obligation to the government on offering MSP and fixing prices to each crop. The MSP being offered is unscientific. Firstly, the prices fixed under the scheme are too less as compared to the cost of cultivation. The rent of the land and the wages of family members are not normally included while calculating the cost of cultivation. Secondly, only 10% of the crop grown by the farmers is procured under the scheme, forcing the farmers to sell the remaining crop in the open market at fallen prices. The Union government should enact a law correcting these anomalies so that the government would be legally duty-bound to offer scientific MSP,” he said.
Viewing the duty-free imports of pulses as one of the major reasons for the fall of prices of domestically grown pulses, Mr. Manpade demanded that the Union government impose at least 30% duty on the imports of pulses.
“The Union government has allowed big corporate houses to import pulses without any duty even when the country had a huge stock of domestically grown pulses. We have been demanding the government to impose 30% duty on the imports so that the imports are restricted and prices are stabilised,” he said.
He announced that the conglomerate of farmers’ organisations will stage a dharna in front of Lok Sabha member Umesh Jadhav’s residence on Sunday with a list of demands.
He also announced that all the farmers’ and labourers’ organisations in the district will actively participate in the nationwide strike next Wednesday.
Farmers’ leaders Sharanabasappa Mamshetty, Maula Mulla and Vishwanath Bhimalli were present.
