JOIN USThe Centre on Monday turned its back on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election promise of fixing the minimum support price for farm produce after adding 50% to the cost of cultivation.
“Our prime minister said at every election meeting that when we come to power, farmers’ income will increase 1.5 times,” Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told reporters here.
“Now, it is a different matter that some people think that increasing farmers’ income means hike in MSP. Whosoever thinks on these lines — god be with them,” Singh said at a press conference to brief the media on the achievements of the government in the last three years.
The minister said that the minimum support price was one of the components that would lead to increase in farmers’ income, but was not the only factor. Singh’s comments run contrary to Modi’s assurances during his election rallies across the country ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“If NDA comes to power, it will ensure remunerative prices to the farmers by adding 50% profit into the peasants’ input cost. We will fix the MSP of crops incorporating 50% profit in farmers cost of production including seed, irrigation, manure, and labour,” Modi had said at a rally in Pathankot on April 25, 2014.
The BJP manifesto for 2014 states that the party will take steps to enhance profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production, cheaper agriculture inputs and credit.
A committee chaired by noted agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan, in its report submitted to the government in 2006, had recommended fixing MSP after adding 50% to the cost of cultivation.
Singh listed introduction of neem coated urea, creating a national agricultural market, encouraging honey bee rearing, and promotion of indigenous cattle breeds as the steps the Modi government had taken to ensure that farmers get a better deal.