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Sukhbir wants wheat bonus of Rs. 400 per quintal

Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday asked the Centre to immediately announce a bonus of Rs. 400 per quintal on wheat and to lift the ban imposed on private traders’ purchasing crop from Punjab farmers.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Badal said there was no rationale behind the Government’s refusal to announce the bonus to farmers when the country was importing wheat at a price ranging between Rs. 1600 and Rs. 1700 per quintal.

Reiterating his party’s earlier demand for raising the Minimum Support Price of wheat to a minimum of Rs. 1500 per quintal, he said this had become necessary in view of the steep increase in prices of agricultural inputs.

He said this was the way not only to save the farm sector from deep crisis but also to ensure food security in view of the shortage of foodgrain in global market.

“Encouraging domestic production rather than going in for huge and expensive imports is the way out of the present mess created by the old and ill-advised approach of the policy makers on the issue,” said the SAD chief.

He alleged the Union Government’s pricing policy was mainly responsible for the burgeoning farm crisis in the country and said it was “amazing” that the Centre was willing to pay exorbitant rates to farmers of other countries for import of wheat while denying the same to our own.

The Akali leader came down heavily on the Centre’s decision not to allow private traders to enter the Punjab markets for procurement of wheat and said this was aimed at denying the peasantry of the State their natural right to sell their produce in an open and competitive market.

Describing the Centre’s decision as “totally arbitrary and anti-farmer”, he said it was hard to see how this decision could be justified in a country that advocated liberal and free economy.

“It is doubly unreasonable and unfair as it comes at a time when the government itself was denying legitimate and remunerative prices to farmers for their produce. Why should the farmers be forced to sell their produce at a price lower than they can get in the private market?” Sukhbir said.

He charged the government was unable to control inflation on all other fronts and wanted to punish the already beleaguered farmers while doing nothing to control the prices of agricultural inputs.

Mr. Badal demanded that prices of agricultural produce, especially foodgrain, should be either linked to international prices or be determined according to the recommendations of M.S. Swaminathan under which farmers must be paid the total cumulative cost of production plus fifty per cent of the same.

He said the Centre had “repeatedly turned a deaf ear” to the demand for linking MSP with overall consumer price index and this had resulted in a “wide gap” between market realities and the government’s policies for agriculture. -- PTI

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Sukhbir wants wheat bonus of Rs. 400 per quintal

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