Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government is now studying the Madhya Pradesh government scheme to ensure that farmers receive minimum support prices (MSP).

Following a sharp fall in crop prices which fueled farmer protests in Madhya Pradesh, the government there had launched a price deficiency scheme named Mukhya Mantri Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana, which directly compensates farmers when they sell their produce below MSP set by the government.

The Gujarat government officials Principal Secretary of Agriculture department Sanjay Prasad, Agriculture Director BM Modi and others are now in Bhopal to study this deficit price payment scheme under which the government pays farmers the difference between the sale price and MSP. Settlements under this scheme are based on the difference between the modal price and MSP.Modal price is calculated as the average price of crops in wholesale markets of Madhya Pradesh and other major growing states.

The Gujarat government spent over Rs 3500 crore to purchase groundnut on support price this winter mainly from farmers in Saurashsra region of the State. The first problem the government faced was shortage of godowns to store purchased stock. The government had to spend huge for hiring private godowns in order to continue the purchase. An incident of fire in one of private godowns triggered controversy following which the government had to form a Special Investigation Team(SIT) of police. The central government arm NAFED pointed out irregularities including purchase of lower quality stock, mixing of bricks, stones and sand in purchased groundnut stock etc. There were also allegations that some traders came forward with 7/12 utara of farmers to take wrong benefit of MSP scheme. In the backdrop of these issues, the government is now studying Madhya Pradesh government’s Bhavantar scheme.

DeshGujarat