New Delhi, June 9
The government today hiked the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy by Rs 80 for the 2011-12 Kharif season to boost rice production and procurement and MSP of cotton by Rs 300 each for both medium and long staple length fibre to Rs 2,800/quintal and Rs 3,300/quintal, respectively.

It also offered a substantial hike in pulses and oil seeds to move closer toward self sufficiency.

However, paddy farmers in the country’s key rice producing areas are not celebrating. They term the hike as yet another display of the Centre’s apathy toward the farmers reeling under high production costs. They intend to approach the Punjab Chief Minister to make public a government report that gives an account of money “squeezed” from the farmers of the state through “low fixing of wheat and paddy MSP”.

The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs has fixed the MSP of paddy (common variety) at Rs 1,080 and

paddy (Grade A) at Rs 1,110 per quintal - an increase of Rs 80 per quintal from last year. According to officials, the government had raised “paddy MSP substantially” as input costs had gone up by almost 64 per cent. But the Rs-80 hike is lower than the Agriculture Ministry's proposal of a hike of Rs 160 per quintal.

Sources say the ministry had proposed a the hike in line with the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices that had suggested a support price (common grade) of Rs 1,080 a quintal for paddy and a bonus of Rs 80 on top of it. It is likely that the government may announce a bonus of Rs 80 per quintal over and above the MSP in the coming months.