BHUBANESWAR: Reiterating the BJD’s demand for implementation of recommendations of Swaminathan Commission report, the regional outfit’s Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra on Friday came down heavily on the Centre for misleading the people by claiming that it has done so.
Participating in the discussion on the motion of thanks on the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha, Patra said the Swaminathan Commission had recommended the government to implement the Minimum Support Price (MSP) at 1.5 times of the comprehensive cost of production (C2) value which it has not done. Clarifying on the issue, Patra said C2 is A2+FL. While A2 deals with the out of pocket expenses of the farmer such as seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, FL is family labour.
The BJD member said the Commission for Agricultural Prices and Costs (CACP) had fixed C2 in the 2018-19 kharif season at Rs 1,560 per quintal for paddy. Had the Centre fully implemented the Swaminathan Commission report, the MSP of paddy should have been Rs 2,340 per quintal in 2018-19. But MSP for paddy was fixed at Rs 1,750 per quintal, he said and added that this MSP was arrived at by taking cost of production at A2+FL of Rs 1166 per quintal. Quoting Swaminathan, Patra said he (Swaminathan) said in October, 2020 that when the Commission recommended 50 per cent increase on cost of production, it meant C2 as the total cost of production.
Criticising Central BJP leaders for looking at MSP in the range of Rs 1,800 to Rs 2,000, the BJD MP said an unanimous resolution was passed in the Odisha Assembly in 2018 demanding that the MSP on paddy should be fixed at Rs 2,930 per quintal.
This was done by adding 25 per cent of the cost of land to the production value, he said and questioned the Centre’s decision not to fully implement the recommendations of the report.He also refuted Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan’s statement in Rajya Sabha on Thursday that BJD parliamentary party leader Prasanna Acharya was misleading the Parliament by demanding the implementation of the Commission recommendations.