New Delhi, March 24
Indian wheat growers would get a higher price for their new crop if an Agriculture Ministry proposal gets the nod from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Cabinet.

On Friday night, the Cabinet decided to bring down the price of grain sold through the state-owned public distribution system (PDS) by Rs 100 a quintal for three months to reduce the stockpile that is currently 58 million tonnes.

Only families with income of less than Rs 60,000 per annum can take grains from the PDS. The price cut has not been given to people below the poverty line — that is people who do not even get two square meals a day.

The government hopes to procure another 20-22 million tonnes of wheat, mainly from a bumper crop in the northern states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

“We have recommended a price hike for procurement of wheat in this season and hope the Cabinet will finalise it next week,” Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh told IANS. Justifying the proposal to increase the minimum support price (MSP) for wheat — the price at which the government buys the grain from farmers — Mr Ajit Singh said, “We have to give incentive to the farmers as the cost of production has gone up.”

Another method being employed for reducing the stockpile is to pay labour in grain. In the long run, he added, “diversification of crops can help tackle the problem of increasing grain production.”