AIKS – government cheating peasantry for 11 years with farce of MSP
According to the Second Advance Estimates of Production for 2024–25, farmers cultivating the 20 major Kharif and Rabi crops could have earned nearly Rs 3 lakh crore more if their produce had been procured at prices determined by the Swaminathan Commission’s recommended formula of C2 + 50% (see table -1). The 20 crops include paddy, cotton, soybean, maize, groundnut, wheat, gram, arhur (tur), rapeseed, jower, urad, moong, bajra, lentil, ragi, sesamum, barley, sunflower, safflower, nigerseed.
Since milk, all commercial crops, vegetables, fruits, meat, egg, fish, etc. are outside the current system of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and procurement, the Indian peasantry suffers losses that are many times higher, leading to indebtedness and daily suicides on an average of 31 farmers. All this is to ensure corporate profits under the corporate-communal BJP-led NDA regime.
Over the last nine years (2016–2025), farmers growing the 20 crops have collectively lost an estimated Rs 24 lakh crore in income solely because the C2 + 50% formula was not implemented, even under the unreal assumption that the entire production was procured at the official MSP.
A significant number of farmers sell their produce below the MSP, particularly in regions without an effective Mandi (procurement) system, which means that the actual scale of farmers’ losses is far greater than what the figures suggest.
Among the 20 crops, paddy, the most widely cultivated crop, accounts for the largest losses — approximately Rs 97,000 crore in 2024–25 alone, and over Rs 7 lakh crore cumulatively during the last nine years.
In Bihar, where elections were just announced, paddy, wheat, and maize farmers together have lost around Rs 10,000 crore in 2024–25 due to the non-implementation of the C2 + 50% pricing formula. Over the the last nine years, their cumulative income loss is estimated at Rs 71,000 crore. The actual figure is likely to be much higher, given the widespread inefficiencies in procurement and limited MSP coverage as the Mandi system was closed down in 2006 by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
PM-Kisan Scheme: Another betrayal of farmers
As of early August 2025, over Rs 3.90 lakh crore have been disbursed to farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme. This total includes release of the 20th instalment (August 2, 2025) of Rs 20,500 crore to over 9.7 crore farmers, the 19th instalment (February 24, 2025) of Rs 22,000 crore to more than 9.8 crore farmers and the 18th instalment (October 5, 2024) of Rs 20,000 crore to more than 9.4 crore farmers. The scheme was announced in 2019 and implemented with retrospective effect from 2018. The scheme provides an annual income support of Rs 6,000 to eligible farmer families paid in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each, disbursed every four months.
If the MSP@C2+50% had been implemented, then farmers cultivating 20 crops alone would have earned Rs 19 lakh crore so that an amount of Rs 11 lakh crore could have been retained even after gifting Rs 7.80 lakh crore to PM Modi.
The farmers of the country have seen the repeated betrayals by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 11 years since 2014. In 2016 the PM had announced a doubling of farmers' income by 2022; this failed miserably but ‘succeeded’ in doubling the cost of production and a manifold increase in the assets of corporate companies.
AIKS President Ashok Dhawale and General Secretary Vijoo Krishnan have called upon all units across the country to expose the Modi led BJP-NDA government by undertaking campaigns in the villages and to rise in protest against this betrayal.
