MSP of kharif crops for 2022-23 meagre, below inflation rate: Congress

The Congress on Thursday accused the government of betraying the country's farmers and said the minimum support prices (MSP) of Kharif crops announced for 2022-23 are meagre and below inflation rate

The Congress on Thursday accused the government of betraying the country's farmers and said the minimum support prices (MSP) of Kharif crops announced for 2022-23 are meagre and far below the rate of inflation.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that instead of increasing the income of farmers, the Narendra Modi government has increased their pain a hundred times.

He shared a chart of increase in MSPs of various crops for the Kharif season and said the rise is much below the rate of inflation.

"The fraud of support price announced by Modi government has been exposed. Once again the Modi government has betrayed the farmers of the country in declaring the support price of Kharif crops for 2022-23. Far from increasing the income of the farmer, the pain of the farmer has increased a hundred times," he said in a statement.

He said on the one hand the government is not buying enough crops on MSP and on the other, the increase in input costs has reduced the income of farmers to half.

The Congress leader said the RBI has recently pegged the inflation rate at 6.7 per cent, which is at its highest level and increase in MSP rates is below the inflation rate.

Surjewala said while making a comparison of Kharif MSP increase with inflation projection, in 11 of 14 crops the MSP increase does not cover the projected RBI inflation of 6.7 per cent.

He also shared a chart of the cost of production of various crops as against the MSP, which is not 50 per cent over the C2 formula as devised by the Swaminathan Committee.