Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers trash Rs 50 wheat MSP hike

Bathinda: Amid raging opposition against the three farm sector bills, the Union government on Monday increased the the MSP of 6 rabi crops for marketing season 2021-22. This included an increase of Rs 50 per quintal in the MSP of wheat. The government has put the production cost of wheat at Rs 960 per quintal. The MSP of wheat has been increased from Rs 1,925 per quintal to Rs 1,975 per quintal. However, the farmers have trashed the hike and termed it as meagre, demanding fixing of price as per Swaminathan Committee recommendation with 50% profit over input cost through C2 formula. They claim as per C2 formula, the MSP of wheat should be around Rs 3,000 per quintal. They also said that as the MSP announced by Modi government for rabi crops is based on the formula of A2 + FL (family labour) which is less than the demand of C2 + 50% profit which was promised by the Prime Minister. Under C2 formula, the entire cost, including family labour and rent of the land, is added while calculating the input cost the crop. Farm organisation BKU Ekta Ugrahan general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri said the formula of Union government in calculating the input cost is faulty as it does not include the rent of the land and many other expenses. In this way, the farmer doesn’t get remunerative price. We are fighting against this anomaly.” He said the government has wrongly claimed that it had included rent for leased land in calculating input cost of Rs 960 for wheat. BKU Ekta Dakonda general secretary Jagmohan Singh said the increase in MSP is meagre. Besides, the government should give a guarantee of procuring all the crops on MSP, which is not the case for crops like maize, moong and cotton.

The Times of India

2020-09-22

Chandigarh