M A I N   N E W S

Wheat MSP raised to Rs 1,000
Rs 50 bonus for paddy
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 9
The Central Government today announced the MSP for wheat at Rs 1,000 per quintal. It also announced a bonus of Rs 50 per quintal on MSP for paddy for the ongoing procurement season.

The wheat crop in April this year was purchased at Rs 850 per quintal by government agencies that included a bonus of Rs 100 per quintal, while the MSP was Rs 750. There is a hike of Rs 250 per quintal in MSP as compared to last year.

The Central government has been facing criticism over the import of wheat at costs, which are higher that the prevailing MSP, and today probably it played its “election card”. This would quell the criticism over imports and please the farmers.

Fine paddy is being procured at Rs 675 per quintal with bonus; now the rate will go up to Rs 725. The MSP for coarse grain is Rs 645 per quintal.

Wheat is at present being sown across Punjab and Haryana and the crop will be ready by next April.

The wheat crisis was such in May that the Union Government had to send a minister to ‘plead’ to the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana to ensure that enough wheat was available in the mandis. But the move failed forcing the government to import wheat. Already the Planning Commission has included seven districts of Punjab under the Food Security Mission to increase farm productivity.

Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal said the hike in the MSP for wheat was long overdue, taking in compulsions of market reality. But the hike still does not meet the import price of Rs 1,250 per quintal.

Sukhbir Singh Badal had earlier written a letter to the Prime Minister demanding that wheat MSP be linked to the market price, he added.

Haryana agriculture minister H.S. Chatha said the unprecedented hike in the wheat MSP would boost production in the country. Chatha said though Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had demanded the wheat MSP for Rs 1,100 per quintal at the “Bijli Rally” at Jhajjar on October 7, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had assured Hooda that the wheat MSP would be announced much before the sowing season.

Chatha said the MSP fixed by the Centre was remunerative and would encourage the farmers to sow wheat in a large area. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Punjab Congress led by Rajinder Kaur Bhattal will leave for Delhi tomorrow to call upon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to thank them for the hike, said Parminder Singh, general secretary of the Punjab unit.