Congress Chintan Shivir proposes legal guarantee for MSP and Farmer Debt Relief Commission

A proposal concerning the issues of the farmers and the agriculture sector was tabled on the final day of the three-day Congress Chintan Shivir at Udaipur. It sought the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to be fixed at “C2 cost + 50 per cent profit” besides a legal guarantee for MSP. It also proposed a National Farmer Debt Relief Commission to address the debt relief of farmers and make the loan provisions favourable to them. The proposal is to prohibit penal action against the farmer and the attaching of his land in the event of his failure to repay loans.

Former Haryana chief minister and senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda had been assigned the responsibility to prepare the proposal regarding agriculture-related issues. He performed the task after long discussions with farmer organizations and agricultural experts.

The proposal says that MSP should be fixed at “C2 cost + 50 per cent profit”. That is, the cost of capital for the farmer and the land rent should also be taken into account while calculating the cost. The proposal says that farmers should be given a legal guarantee for MSP.

Criticizing the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the proposal says that while private insurance companies have made a profit of Rs 34,304 crore out of it in six years, farmers did not benefit. It seeks that there should be clauses for universal insurance of all crops, and that the sector should be run not by private companies but by PSUs with ‘no profit, no loss’ as a thumb rule.

The proposal says that there is a need for a separate Kisan Budget which should contain accounts of all schemes related to farmer welfare. There should be a National Farmer Welfare Fund to give relief to the farmers in view of the vagaries of the weather, natural disasters and the volatility in market prices. The proposal says that tractors and other agricultural implements should be exempted from GST.

According to the proposal, Rs 6,000 per month should be given to the families of small and marginal farmers and the landless poor so that they can become part of the mainstream. The number of agricultural produce mandis should be increased from 7,600 at present to 42,000 so that farmers can find one at every 10km. It should be mandatory to give 100 days of work in MNREGA, which not everyone is getting at present.