New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that each and every expense incurred by a farmer will be considered, including his labour, while fixing the minimum support price (MSP) at 1.5 times the input cost.
Addressing the nation via his monthly radio programme, Mann ki Baat, the Prime Minister said a major decision was taken in this year's budget to ensure adequate returns to farmers when the government decided to give at least one-and-a-half times the input costs as MSP for the scheduled crops.
Modi said while calculating the MSP, the input cost to be considered will include the labour cost, expenditure on machines and animals-also including machine and animals on hire-cost of seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, land revenue, interest on working capital, rent of leased land and even the labour cost of the farmer and his family.
"Further to ensure adequate income to farmers, agriculture marketing reforms are being initiated in a big way. Efforts are being made to link village markets to wholesale market and global market," he said.
The Prime Minister added that in order to ensure that farmers do not have to go far to sell their produce, 22,000 village haats are being upgraded to agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) and being integrated with e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) platform.
"Such a system is being evolved that farms can be connected to any market in the country," Modi added.
The government had set up an inter-ministerial panel on doubling farmers' income by 2022, which will submit its final report next month. The Dalwai Committee, set up in April 2016, has already written 14 volumes identifying ways to double farmers' 2015-16 income level, in real terms, in seven years.
Farmers across India have been protesting for higher MSP’s and loan waivers, with political parties passing the buck a year before the nation heads to polls.
(With agency inputs)
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