New Delhi: The central government on Wednesday announced the minimum support price (MSP) for 14 Kharif season crops in its first meeting of the Union Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The announcement was made by Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Addressing the media after the meeting of the union cabinet, Minister Vaishnaw said, “The Cabinet has approved Minimum Support Price (MSP) on 14 Kharif season crops including paddy, ragi, bajra, jowar, maize and cotton. With today’s decision, the farmers will get around Rs lakh crores as MSP. This is Rs 35,000 crores more than the previous season.”
Cabinet approves Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2024-25
In the 2018-19 Union Budget, the Government of India had taken a policy decision of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 1.5 times the All-India weighted average cost of production
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The increase in MSP for Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2024-25 is in line with the Union Budget 2018-19 announcement of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 1.5 times of the All-India weighted average cost of production, The expected margin to farmers over their cost of production are estimated to be highest in case of bajra (77%) followed by tur (59%), maize (54%) and urad (52%). For rest of the crops, margin to farmers over their cost of production is estimated to be at 50%.
In the recent years, Government has been promoting the cultivation of crops, other than cereals such as pulses and oilseeds, and Nutri-cereals/ Shree Anna, by offering a higher MSP for these crops.
The government has increased the MSP of Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2024-25, to ensure remunerative prices to the growers for their produce. The highest absolute increase in MSP over the previous year has been recommended for oilseeds and pulses viz. nigerseed (Rs.983/- per quintal) followed by sesamum (Rs.632/- per quintal) and tur/arhar (Rs.550/- per quintal).
As per the 3rd Advance Estimates of production for 2023-24, total foodgrain production in the country is estimated at 3288.6 Lakhs Metric Ton (LMT), and oilseeds production is touching 395.9 LMT. During 2023-24, kharif production of rice, pulses, oilseeds and nutri-cereals/Shree Anna and cotton is estimated to be 1143.7 LMT, 68.6 LMT, 241.2 LMT, 130.3 LMT and 325.2 Lakh bales, respectively.
On Tuesday in an event at Varanasi, PM Modi released the 17th instalment amounting to more than Rs 20,000 crore to around 9.26 crore beneficiary farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) through Direct Benefit Transfer.