Ranchi: The mahagathbandhan government has failed to keep its election promise of providing Rs 2,500 as minimum support price (MSP) for every quintal of paddy to farmers. Even during this year’s budget speech, the government had reiterated its promise to increase the MSP to Rs 2,500 per quintal. But chief minister Hemant Soren on Saturday approved a proposal to provide Rs 1,868 per quintal as the MSP for paddy along with an additional bonus of Rs 182 per quintal. For Grade-A quality paddy, Rs 1,888 per quintal has been fixed as the rate. The MSP proposal will likely be placed before the cabinet next week. The rates are largely in tune with the MSP prescribed by the Centre.
Talking to TOI on Sunday, Badal Patralekh, the state agriculture minister and Congress MLA from Jarmundi, said the government was committed to fulfil its poll promise, but the plan to further raise the MSP was put on hold as the administration wanted to first prepare a roadmap to plug leakages.
Patralekh said, “We wanted to give an MSP of Rs 2,500 from our first year itself but during my recent field visits with state finance minister Rameshwar Oraon to the Santhal Pargana, we discovered that middlemen were cornering most of the cash subsidy schemes of the government.”
He added, “We spoke with several farmers in the Santhal Pargana to know the rate at which they sell their paddy. We learnt that some sell a quintal of paddy for as low as Rs 500, a few for Rs 700, while others sell at Rs 1,300 to middlemen. The latter then sell the stock at government procurement centres for about Rs 2,000 per quintal. This means that the farmers didn’t get the rates approved by the government. Increasing the MSP to Rs 2,500 would not benefit the farmers. So I have asked the officials to first prepare a proper plan so that the entire money reaches the real beneficiaries.”
Paddy is procured by the state food and civil supplies department. Sources in the department said that farmers tend to avoid selling paddy directly to the government owing to the delay in receiving payments.
“Farmers want on the spot payment in lieu of their paddy. Rather than direct benefit transfer, they stress of getting hard cash. We are working out ways to improve the procurement and payment structure,” he said.
This year, Jharkhand is expecting a bumper harvest owing to the good monsoon. Sources said that the agriculture department is expecting about 55 lakh tonnes of paddy, much higher than the annual average of 37 lakh tonnes.