The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : State for buying farm produce at market rates

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

State for buying farm produce at market rates

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The State government has requested the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to take steps to ensure that procurement of agriculture produce is operationalised with market rates rather than the minimum support price.

An appropriate percentage over and above the cost of cultivation should be worked out for fixing the MSP as the present trend in hike of MSP was not commensurate with the increase in the cost of living index.

The government had conveyed its dissatisfaction over the lack of “scientific approach” in determining the minimum support price for agriculture products to a delegation of CACP headed by its chairman T. Haque that arrived here on Tuesday.

In a memorandum submitted to the commission, the government said that labour rates announced by it were less than half of what was actually being demanded on the ground. As a result, crop in vast stretches was remaining un-harvested.

Coupled with this were schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme that were providing lucrative wages to labour, thereby, setting trends ‘un-favourable’ to agriculture. The existing norms did not provide for inclusion of packaging and transport cost.

Agriculture Minister N. Raghuveera Reddy spoke to Dr. Haque and requested the CACP chairman to take into consideration the proposals made by the State government on enhancing the MSP.

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Andhra Pradesh