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India : CONGRESS president asks Govt. to relax procurement norms for rain-hit crops
Publish Date : 10-Apr-2015
Saying unseasonal rain and hailstorms are causing "acute distress," to farmers, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked the government to relax norms regarding moisture content of wheat purchased by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), Sonia said she had been to affected areas in several states and seen first hand the acute distress that the farmers were facing, in a letter to Union Food Minister Ramvilas Paswan.
She said, "Several of them have been pushed to poverty overnight and are staring at bankruptcy." In the letter, the Congress president called it an "extraordinary situation" and "unprecedented crisis". Sonia said it has been brought to her notice that the FCI manual stipulates that the government would reject the procurement of such wheat, if the rabi wheat crop's moisture content exceeds 14%.
She also said the government would also levy a discount if the moisture content was from 12 percent to 14 percent. Sonia continue saying that while such stipulations can hold in normal situations, unseasonal rainfall and hailstorms over the last few weeks have severely damaged the wheat crop and would result in increased moisture content. She added that under the current manual for procurement, very little wheat will qualify for purchase because of an unprecedented situation.
The Congress president said, "These are difficult days for farmers. And, not being able to sell their produce defeats the very purpose of guaranteeing a minimum support price to farmers. Though the MSP (minimum support price) for wheat fixed by the government doesn't reflect true cost, a complete denial of MSP will compound the existing problems for our farmers."
