Badal rejects Rs 20 hike per quintal in MSP of wheat

Chandigarh, Nov 5 : Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today rejected the hike of Rs 20 per quintal in Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Wheat as announced by the Centre, raising it to Rs 1,100 from last year’s Rs 1,080 per quintal.

In a statement here, he described the hike as ‘woefully inadequate and unjustified’.

Mr Badal said that a meager hike of Rs 20 was nothing but a cruel joke with the beleaguered farmers who were already in distress due to low returns on their produce despite exorbitant cost of agricultural inputs incurred by them on diesel, fertilizers, pesticides etc.

He further said that the Centre’s decision to hike the MSP of Wheat by just Rs 20 per quintal could never be the answer to the agony of the farming community. Mr Badal said that the Centre should have realized the sad plight of the farmers, which compelled them to take extreme step to end their lives.

The Chief Minister said that the non-remunerative MSP coupled with anti-farmer policies of Centre was primarily responsible for the decline of the growth rate of Agriculture sector.

He said that his government had been constantly pleading the case of Punjab's peasantry with the Centre and even he personally met the Prime Minister and Union Agricultural Minister several times and demanded MSP of Wheat at least Rs 1400 per quintal.

The Chief Minister said that the Centre should have appreciated the immense contribution of Punjab farmers to make the country self sufficient in food production to ensure national food security.

He said instead of rewarding them with remunerative MSP, the Centre had actually demoralized them by making the agriculture a non-viable profession due to its "wrong policies".

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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