Centre Increases MSP for Rabi Crops in India for Marketing Year 2024-25
The centre has hiked the minimum support price (MSP) by Rs 150 a quintal for wheat and five other rabi crops for the upcoming 2024-25 marketing season. It is the highest MSP increase for the welfare of wheat growers since crop year 2007-08 . The amount of MSP is the guarantee a farmer receives when the Central Government buys his produce.
- The CACP recommends MSPs for 22 mandated crops and fair and remunerative price (FRP) for sugarcane.
- MSP is meant to ensure remunerative prices to growers, thus incentivizing them towards crop diversification.
- MSP is extremely essential considering the double droughts of 2014 and 2015, the Demonetisation and GST rollout and the general economic slowdown post-2016-17.
- The MSP in India has limited dissemination; poor implementation; crop skewness; dependence on middlemen and a fiscal burden on the government.
- Government should expand the list of crops that shall come under MSP to promote crop diversification and reduce the clutches of rice and wheat progressively, pay more attention to food security crops, and increase procurement arrangements.
