BHUBANESWAR: The BJD on Monday threatened that the farmers’ wing of the party will launch a Statewide agitation unless the letter of the Agriculture Ministry justifying the paltry hike in minimum support price (MSP) on paddy was withdrawn and price per quintal is hiked to `2,930.The BJD which staged a dharna over the issue in front of Raj Bhavan earlier in the day, submitted a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind through the Governor criticising the attitude of the Centre towards farmers. The memorandum described the letter written by Deputy Economic Advisor of Agriculture Ministry to Deputy Government chief whip Rohit Pujari as unfortunate and said it is detrimental to the interests of more than 60 lakh farmer families of Odisha.
The Centre announced MSP of `1,550 per quintal of paddy for 2017-18 completely ignoring the State’s demand for its hike, the memorandum said and added that the price fixed by the Centre is not commensurate with the rising cost of inputs, the livelihood of the farmers has been affected.An unanimous resolution was passed in the Assembly on March 25 to demand revision of MSP of paddy to `2930 per quintal and an all party house committee under the chairmanship of Speaker was constituted to discuss the issue with the Prime Minister. But, there was no response to their request.
BJD vice-president Debi Prasad Mishra, general secretaries Sanjay Dasburma and Pranab Prakash Das, Finance Minister Sashi Bhusan Behera, Women and Child Development Minister Prafulla Samal, Government chief whip Amar Prasad Satpathy, Bhubaneswar MLAs Bijoy Mohanty and Priyadarshi Mishra addressed the protest meeting among others.