NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Center and others on a plea to give weightage to the states’ proposal on the exact cost of cultivation while fixing the minimum support price.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalia Bagchi agreed to hear the petition and issued notices to the Centre, Directorate General of Foreign Trade and Agricultural Costs and Prices Commission seeking their response to the petition.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners, said the petition raises a very important issue related to farmers in the country.
“Indian farmers are facing a terrible financial crisis due to their inability to sell their produce even at their actual production cost. This has led to widespread farmer suicides, with more than seventeen thousand farmers committing suicide in the state of Maharashtra alone in the past five years,” the appeal said.
During the arguments, Bhushan said that the minimum subsidy is often fixed at less than the actual cost of farming.
The bench observed that a lot of mathematical formulas have been cited in the petition and difficulty may arise in case of cost of land and capital which may vary from one state to another.
Bhushan said that the calculations were conducted by the government itself.
“You are asking us to rewrite economic policy,” the council noted.
He said that there probably could not be a uniform policy for all as there were farmers who also owned large amounts of land.
However, the court agreed to hear the petition and issued a notice thereon.
She said that the government and its institutions calculate the cost of producing various agricultural products state by state.
“The MS Swaminathan Committee report in 2006 recommended that farmers should be paid 50 per cent dividend to make agriculture viable in the country,” the petition said, adding that the government had never questioned this recommendation.
She said the minimum production cost set by the government year by year and crop by crop was much lower than the weighted average cost of production.
“For some crops, especially wheat and rice, the government is a virtual monopoly buyer as it distributes these agricultural products under the Food Security Act at highly subsidized prices, almost at no cost, to the people,” he added.
She also said that the provision of free wheat and rice under the Food Security Act to about two-thirds of the population has also artificially reduced demand for other competing food crops, especially millets, which people are not buying due to the availability of almost free rations of wheat and rice.
“Aggravating this already acute plight is the recently concluded trade agreement between India and the United States under which most agricultural products are allowed to be imported into India from the United States virtually exempt from any import duty,” the petition said.
It has sought directions to the authorities to ensure complete procurement of crops notified under the Marine Support Scheme calculated on the basis of accurate cost of cultivation.
The appeal also sought direction to establish effective, accessible and functional procurement centers in every tehsil, block, village and district across the country, and to establish a transparent and uniform procurement mechanism that would ensure assured procurement of all crops notified under the MSP system, without restricting effective procurement only to select crops or areas.
The petitioners also called on the court to issue directions to the states and union territories to waive off all farm loans owed to farmers, in view of the alleged continuing failure of the MSP framework in ensuring recovery of the cost of farming and the resulting agrarian distress.
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