Stating that farmers who have harvested ragi could face losses to a tune of ₹1,000 crore in the absence of full-fledged procurement by the Government, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah on Sunday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow procurement of ragi under the MSP regime without any restrictions.
While the maximum procurement has been set at 2.1 lakh tonnes, each farmer is restricted to sell about 20 quintals at a minimum support price of ₹3,377 per quintal. Referring to restrictions, the former Chief Minister said that the current open market price is between ₹1,800 and ₹2,180 per quintal, which would lead to severe losses to farmers. “On an average, farmers could lose ₹ 1.377 per quintal,” he said.
He said that ragi has been cultivated on 19.35 lakh acres in South Karnataka districts and production is estimated to be around 15 lakh tonnes. Though farmers have been enthusiastic about selling it in procurement centres, the window of registration has been closed. “As it is farmers retain about 50% of the produce for their consumption, and about 8 lakh tonnes of ragi could come to the market. Government should procure as much as the farmers bring to the procurement centres and registration should be reopened by removing restrictions,” he demanded.
Mr. Siddaramaiah also said that the MSP fixed for ragi this year at ₹3,377 per quintal was less when compared to the higher input cost incurred by the farmers. “Government has increased the MSP by just ₹82 per quintal over the last year’s MSP,” he said.
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