Bhubaneswar: Union Minister of Petroleum and Steel Dharmendra Pradhan Saturday said farmers in the country won’t be deprived of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He was speaking in a press conference in the state capital to talk about the recently passed three legislations on farmers. “Under the leadership of PM Modi, no farmers are going to suffer and receive profits below MSP. The three Acts will be a harbinger of an era of better profit for the farmers unlike the 70 years of earlier governance,” he said.
When asked why the MSP has not been made part of any law, he said, “Even earlier the MSP was not well prescribed in laws but it was given. Under our governance, the MSP was strengthening. In last few years, farmers have been selling more paddy under MSP. Earlier, MSP for pulses was hardly given which was given in good numbers in the last few years,” he said.
The BJP leader from Odisha claimed that the power to dismantle or retain the APMC lay with the states. He said that the three bills would bolster the selling power of farmers and weed out the middlemen involved in trading of the crops of farmers in the market.
He also tried to allay the fears of multi-national companies invading the local markets and said that in the past, several local players had been buying crops from farmers in good amount and collaborating with them.
“Don’t we have good and capable players who can tie up with farmers. There are several examples in Nabarangpur, Bolangir and others where the local produce is procured by local players. The talks of MNCs invading agri markets are misleading,” he said.