Raghav JhunjhunwalaAIR 4 · CSE 2025 · 192 wordsTheir whole copy
Opening · a recent event
Recently, India witnessed severe farm protests over MSP coverage and demands to strengthen it.
Body · points
MSP: Help to promote farmer Income
(1) Prevent distress sales when price collapses.
(2) Promotes crop diversification, and encourages HVC: High value crop production.
(3) Encourages farmers to invest as they are assured of minimum returns.
(4) Helps to maintain cash flows and repay older debts.
(5) Stronger revision of MSP by Centre: past 8 yrs: > 4.6% p.a. Agri growth
(6) Helps undertake other avenues of non farm employment Ex: Funds for Animal Husbandry.
Challenges faced by farmers in accessing MSP benefits:
(1) Dalwai committee : Small and marginal farmers are mostly unaware.
(2) Regional divide: west India vs. East India (High coverage) (low coverage)
(3) Corruption by middlemen @ APMCs (Arhatiyas)
(4) Poor storage and transport facilities; difficulty to reach mandi/APMC.
(5) Poor capacity of MSP (Drying, storage, packaging & grading) → low price realization.
(6) monotonicity of crops: Wheat, rice : open procurement system
way forward: (1) → strengthen eNAM (2) → use Derivative Trading (3) → promote DBT over MSP
Close · a way forward
Ashok Gulati vouches for complete transfer to MSP and promotion of rural agri investment.