BHUBANESWAR: The Assembly Committee on Minimum Support Price (MSP) of paddy on Friday decided to meet President Ram Nath Kovind to discuss the issue.It was decided that the committee headed by Speaker Pradip Kumar will seek an appointment from Rashtrapati Bhavan to take up the issues relating to Odisha farmers with the President, said BJD MLA Sanjay Dasburma.
After a meeting of the committee, Dasburma said it has been decided to meet the President as it could not get appointment from the Prime Minister’s Office. He alleged that the PMO did not even acknowledge the committee’s request letter.However, the two BJP members of the committee, KV Singhdeo and Bibhuti Bhusan Harichandan did not attend the meeting. Among others, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Narasingh Mishra, Agriculture Minister Pradip Maharathi, Government chief whip Amar Prasad Satpathy and opposition chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati“It is unfortunate that none from the BJP attended the meeting.
The BJP is not interested for the welfare of farmers,” Bahinipati said. Satpathy said the meeting criticised the Centre for unilaterally enhancing MSP on paddy by `200 per quintal without taking the State Government into confidence. He said the meeting resolved to submit a memorandum to the President mentioning the State’s demand to fix the MSP on paddy at `2930 per quintal.
The Assembly had last year passed an unanimous resolution asking the Centre to announce MSP on paddy at `2,930 per quintal. The Centre has recently fixed the MSP for paddy at ` 1,750 per quintal against the State’s demand of `2,930 per quintal.