Centre may give ~150 bn to help states buy farm goods
The government is looking to spend ~120-150 billion to support states’ procurement of agricultural commodities under the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
The models include Madhya Pradesh’s Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana, its own Market Assurance Scheme, the Telangana model of income support or any other scheme, a senior agriculture ministry official said. “A lot of these issues are under the realm of discussions. But we would ideally like to participate in some form or the other and might give freedom to states to choose their own strategy to procure agriculture commodities to support farmers,” the official said. The financial support would only be limited to farm products under MSP and not horticulture crops.
Though the Budget hasn’t allocated any amount for this, resources can be arranged through supplementary demand for grants in 2018-19, he said.
Various models of procurement would also be discussed during a twoday meeting between the government, NITI Aayog officials, academicians, state officials and others from Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also be attending it.
Agriculture ministry representatives would hold discussions with the NITI Aayog and others in the next few weeks to deliberate upon an ideal procurement mechanism for states. Sources said the thinking within the government was to let states determine procurement mechanisms and the Centre would share the cost. “For most schemes, the Centre and states share the financial burden in the ratio of 60:40. But in this case, we might agree on 50:50 or something else but it won’t be more than existing ratio of central-state sharing,” the official said.