Bhubaneswar: Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Niranjan Patnaik Monday urged the government to construct adequate number of godowns for storage of paddy to ensure farmers benefit from the increased Minimum Support Price (MSP).
Stating the hike of `200 per quintal for paddy in MSP, is too little in comparison to the actual production cost involved, Patnaik said without sufficient storage facility, government cannot ensure that the benefit of increased MSP will reach all farmers.
“Government agencies like Food Corporation of India (FCI) only procure rice and wheat. Farmers in Odisha as well as the rest of the country expect to sell their produce at remunerative prices, but it does not happen. Government agencies procure a part of the produce and there is shortage of godowns to store these,” he alleged.
The PCC chief said the country produced around 146 million tonnes (MT) of paddy every year from 2010-11 to 2014-15 and 147 MT of paddy in 2015-16.
In 2015-16, the Centre had hiked MSP for paddy by `50 per quintal and the government agencies had procured around 43 million tonnes of paddy that year, which accounted for around 29 per cent of the total paddy produced, he mentioned.
Last year (2017-18), 156.12 MT paddy was produced and 52 MT were procured while the hike in MSP was `80 per quintal, he said, adding, “The procurement represents 33.3 per cent of total production.”
Keeping in view these figures, Patnaik expected that government agencies will procure around 35 per cent of the total produce.
“Every year government agencies only procure paddy and wheat as per MSP. But
thousands and lakhs of tonnes of other agricultural produce like oil seeds, potatoes,
onion, sugarcane, vegetables are being sold as per market determined prices. Because of this, many a time farmers are compelled to go for distress sale,” he added.
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