NEW DELHI: The SC appointed committee on farm laws may consider backing protection for MSP in its report with several unions, pitching for stronger protection of a floor price.
There are indications that the three-member panel may speak favourably on the MSP demand — though its exact formulation is as yet unclear — as most unions who appeared before it or submitted their views strongly called for a legal guarantee to MSP to procure all crops.
In their representations they are learnt to have told the panel that any decision pertains to giving legal guarantee to the MSP may end the ongoing agitation as the protestors would not like to return to their villages empty handed.
Even RSS-linked organisations such as Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (MSP) too have publicly spoken in favour of legal guarantee to MSP, besides submitting their other suggestions to the government. The SC-appointed panel is expected to submit its report by March 20.
Jai Kisan Andolan (JKA), on Thursday launched ‘MSP loot’ calculator to show losses incurred by farmers. Though the government’s figures show increase in procurement footprints this year during the ongoing ‘Kharif Marketing Season’ (KMS), the organisation led by Yogendra Yadav used official data to clarify how farmers actually incurred losses as they were forced to sell their crops much below MSP.
Terming it as the “loot of farmers”, Yadav said, “If the same trend of sale below MSP price continues and the government does not interfere, then in this year itself the farmers will be looted of Rs 870 crore.”