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Haryana govt agrees to ‘fair price’ on sunflower crops, no clarity on MSP yet
Kurukshetra deputy commissioner Shantanu Sharma said there was no clarity weather the procurement will be done on minimum support price (MSP) or not.
The Haryana government on Tuesday said that the Haryana State Co-operative Supply and Marketing Federation Limited (also known as HAFED) has started procurement of sunflower crop on ₹4800 and now it will be increased to ₹5000 a quintal, paving way for the farmers to end their protest.
The government had earlier announced to procure sunflower seed at ₹4800 a quintal and now the rate has increased to ₹4900, but now we have been told to increase the rate to ₹5000 a quintal from Wednesday. Even the government has also decided to provide fair price to the farmers by increasing the procurement price or the compensatory amount ( ₹1000 per quintal) under the Bhavantar Bharpai Scheme”, Kurukshetra deputy commissioner Shantanu Sharma announced.
Sharma said there was no clarity weather the procurement will be done on minimum support price (MSP) or not.
Farmer leader Suresh Koth said that the government has agreed to fill the gap between the MSP and market price including ₹1000 being paid under Bhavantar Bharpai Yojana. He added that Gurnam Charuni and other farmer leaders will be released soon.
Following the announcement, the farmers lifted the blockade and started vacating the protest site. Traffic is likely to be restored on NH-44 (Delhi-Amritsar).
The farmers had blocked the National Highway-44 near Pipli, which connects Delhi with Chandigarh and some other routes since Monday afternoon after holding a mahapanchayat on the issue.
The government had imposed Section 144 in an area of two kilometres of radius of grain market, where the mahapanchayat was held. The 'MSP Dilao, Kisan Bachao Mahapanchayat', called by the BKU (Charuni), was held at a grain market in Pipli close to NH-44. Subsequently, the farmers blocked the highway.
The protesting farmers said that the state government was not buying sunflower seeds at MSP, forcing them to sell their output to private purchasers for roughly ₹4,000 per quintal instead of ₹6,400.
