BHUBANESWAR: An Assembly Committee, headed by Speaker Niranjan Pujari, will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand a substantial hike in the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy.
The House Committee will seek an appointment with the Prime Minister sometime in June to take up the issue, Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathy told reporters after a meeting chaired by Pujari here on Wednesday. Senior officers of the Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment and Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare departments will discuss the issue threadbare and after taking inputs from the meeting, a memorandum will be prepared, he added.
As the Centre announced MSP for paddy during June and July, the memorandum would be given to the Prime Minister before fixation of support price, Pujari said.
A resolution, seeking a hike in MSP for paddy from Rs 1,470 to Rs 2,930 per quintal, had been passed unanimously in the budget session of the Assembly. Maharathy said the State Government has been recommending increase in the MSP to `2,500 per quintal of paddy to the Centre for the last three years.
Justifying the hike in MSP, Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra said the BJP, in its election manifesto, had promised to provide 50 per cent profit over and above the cost of production to the farmers. “It has been three years since the BJP came to power at the Centre, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has conveniently forgotten to keep his promise. The Modi Government is morally bound to keep its promise,” he said.
Ironically, the promise made by the Prime Minister was something that was suggested during the first tenure of the UPA by M S Swaminathan, the agricultural scientist credited with India’s Green Revolution. Absence of two BJP MLAs, K V Singhdeo and Pradip Purohit, members of the House panel, in the meeting has drawn sharp criticism from the ruling BJD with Minister of State for Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Sanjay Das Burma calling it a betrayal towards the farmers.
Reacting to the Minister’s statement, Singhdeo said the former should refrain from making such remarks. The Minister should verify facts before making such comments. Politics should not be done at the cost of farmers, he added.
Claiming that the BJP, which raised the MSP issue in the Assembly, Singhdeo said the proposed meeting of the House Committee became irrelevant after the issue was taken up by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik with the Prime Minister at the NITI Aayog meeting.