THE Minimum Support Price (MSP) of winter crops for the forthcoming Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) (2020-21) announced by the Narendra Modi led BJP government is insensitive, anti-peasant and a betrayal of its own promises. In times of an economic recession, increased costs of cultivation and falling incomes, the MSP announced is a mockery of farmers’ plight. Pliant sections of the corporate media are only adding insult to injury by terming it a festival gift to farmers. All India Kisan Sabha, in a statement issued on October 26, has condemned this approach of the BJP government and demanded that remunerative prices be announced in consultation with state governments and organisations representing the peasantry.

The claims that increase in MSP for Rabi crops was in line with the principle of fixing MSPs at a level of at least 1.5 times of the all India weighted average cost of production is a farce. First and foremost the government has now altogether discarded the C2 cost and stuck to A2+FL which are way below C2 costs. The weighted average C2 cost for wheat as per the state government projections provided by the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) is Rs 1848 per Qtl. The government is taking Rs. 923 per Qtl as the cost of production, implying 50 per cent below the C2 costs projected by the state governments and also about 36 per cent below CACP C2 projection of Rs 1425 per Qtl. Similarly for all crops, the MSP announced has been on the basis of depressed costs. The table below clearly exposes the farcical claims of the BJP government that the MSP fixed is at least 1.5 times the all India weighted average cost of production. For every Rabi crop, the MSP fixed is way below C2+50 per cent whether one takes the CACP projections or the projections by state governments.

It is also to be noted that these calculations are purely based on costs provided by the CACP and state governments and amidst the peasantry repeatedly pointing out that they are far below the actual costs and do not account for the increase in prices of fertilisers, irrigation costs, labour costs and crop protection costs.

AIKS demands that the BJP government put an end to this farce and announce prices as per the C2+50 per cent formula and also make provision for assured procurement. AIKS calls upon its units to expose this insensitive attitude of the Narendra Modi led BJP government and rise up in protest.