Chandigarh, April 7
Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar here today virtually ruled out the possibility of bonus on wheat. Though Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his counterpart from Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda pressed Pawar hard for announcing bonus for wheat, he refused to yield.
Pawar said the MSP of wheat - Rs 1,000 per quintal for the current year - was fixed by including bonus, hence he would not make any commitment in this regard. However, he said both Badal and Hooda had brought to his notice that the cost of various inputs required for wheat had gone up several fold recently, and owing to those factors, there was case to give bonus on wheat.
“I would apprise the Union government about the views put forth on bonus by both Chief Ministers,” he added. Both CMs have been expecting bonus in the range of Rs 200 to Rs 400 per quintal, but Pawar’s “no promise attitude” on this issue dampened their spirits a bit.
Pawar’s claim was that the Manmohan Singh government had increased the MSP of wheat by 59 per cent in the past four years, whereas the previous NDA government just made an increase of 14.5 per cent in its tenure of five years.
Badal countered Pawar through a press note by claiming that the NDA government always kept the level of wheat MSP above its international price, whereas the Manmohan Singh government has been fixing the MSP of wheat at less than that of its
international price.
Pawar, who interacted with the Chief Ministers and senior officers of the two states for about two hours at Punjab Bhavan, urged them to ensure maximum procurement of wheat for the national pool. The target given to Punjab by him is of 80 lakh tonnes and for Haryana 40 lakh tonnes.
Punjab is now expecting the arrival of 90 lakh tonnes of wheat for procurements during this season. Its earlier estimate was of 105 lakh tonnes.
Pawar’s visit clearly indicated that the spiralling prices of eatables have given a big jolt to the UPA government. As the Congress is indirectly blaming Pawar for fragile food security, he rushed here to make a first-hand assessment of the availability of wheat for the national pool.
Expressing concern over the sale of wheat through illegal channels without bringing to market, Pawar said the trend was causing huge loss in the form of revenue to states concerned. “Though farmers may be making small financial gain by selling the wheat outside the market system, for each quintal of wheat Punjab suffered a loss of Rs 125 in the form of revenue that is spent to build rural roads etc,”said Pawar.
Responding to the demand made by both Chief Ministers, Pawar said he would put the issue of removing the ban on the export of basmati type rice, that is not consumed by commoners, before the Union cabinet. He assured the Chief Ministers that arrangement would be made to provide adequate fertilisers to farmers during the paddy season.
He said it would not be in the interest of farmers to link the procurement price of foodgrains, especially wheat with international price. Except for the past two years, the international price of wheat had remained less than that of the MSP fixed by the Indian government, he said.
He said the Centre would send a team to assess the loss caused by the recent inclement weather to wheat crop in Punjab and Haryana.
He also promised to include frost and other climatic factors that harm crops in the definition of natural calamities to give relief to the affected farmers. Frost, which had caused huge damage to potato crop this year, is not included in natural calamities. He said he would sit with Badal to discuss the issue of suicide which, he claimed, had not been brought to his notice in detail so far by farmers in Punjab.
Ruling out special package for Punjab and Haryana, he said both states would benefit from Rs 30,000 crore earmarked for food security mission and promotion of agriculture.
