[Watch] Sasmit Patra Counters ‘Big Brother’ Dharmendra On Odisha’s Paddy MSP Demand

Bhubaneswar: BJD Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra on Friday put forth facts and figures to justify his party’s demand for implementation of Swaminathan Committee recommendations on MSP in letter and spirit.

Patra was responding to Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s allegation that BJD was misleading farmers.

“I had planned to speak on some other issues. But Dharmendra Pradhan yesterday suggested that I should explain the grounds for BJD insisting on implementing the Swaminathan report. Since he is an elder brother to me and I respect him a lot, I decided to heed to his advice,” he said while participating in the motion of thanks on President’s address in Rajya Sabha.

Quoting Swaminathan, Patra said, “The commission had recommended 50 per cent over costs, which meant complete costs called C2, which includes all assumed costs.”

Patra said that the commission had asked the government to fix minimum support prices (MSPs) for farm produce based on a comprehensive measure of cultivation costs that includes the imputed cost of capital and the rent on the land (called ‘C2’ ) to give farmers 50 per cent returns, rather than a narrower measure that takes into account the costs incurred by the farmer and the value of family labour (‘A2+FL’ ).

Referring to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), 2018-19, report, he said that it had fixed the C2 of paddy at Rs 1560 a quintal. “If the Swaminathan Commission Report was actually implemented then the MSP would have been fixed at 1.5 times of Rs. 1560 per quintal totalling Rs. 2340 per quintal. Instead, the MSP was fixed in 2018-19 at Rs. 1750 per quintal, which was 1.5 times of ‘A2+FL’ at Rs 1166. This clearly shows that the Swaminathan Committee report has not been implemented in full,” he added.

Patra then expressed gratitude to BJP, Congress and Community Party MLAs in Odisha, who had supported the state government’s proposal to fix the MSP of paddy at Rs 2,930 per quintal in the legislative assembly in 2018.

The amount was reached after adding 25 per cent of land cost to 1.5 times of the C2, he explained.

While making regular reference to Dharmendra, Patra questioned the different stands that BJP was taking in the Centre and the state and stressed BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s demand for implementation of Swaminathan Committee recommendations on MSP.

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