For farms and farmers: on launching of Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana

The Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana released by Chhattisgarh last week intends to supplement the income of the State’s 18 lakh rice, maize and sugarcane farmers by10,000 to13,000 per acre, through direct cash transfers. The Centre’s PM-KISAN scheme that offers 6,000 to farm families owning less than five acres of land, Telangana, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh have comparable money transfer programmes for farmers. For stabilizing the interests of the customer and the farmer, India has an extensive Minimum Assistance Price (MSP) program which works in combination with the PDS. However the performance of neither MSP procurements nor the PDS is uniform across the nation. The Centre says it repairs MSPs at 1.5 times the cost of production for farmers, however this computation is not devoid of debate. In 2015, several States including Chhattisgarh and BJP-ruled U.P. and Haryana questioned the Centre’s MSP calculations. Though food is a universal necessity, those who produce it languish at the bottom of the financial pyramid.

These earnings assistance schemes target land owners, and bypass renters and labourers. In Chhattisgarh, there is initial proof that occupants managed better rates from owners last year after the federal government provided rewards over and above MSP