Amid growing clamour for crackdown on rising food prices, a petition in the Supreme Court has sought constitution of a “joint forum” of farmers and end consumers to bring down inflation and ensure assured prices for ryots.
The PIL filed by a Uttar Pradesh—based farmer, Bhagat Ram Misra, alleged that the Centre and the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) had failed to fix proper minimum support price (MSP) for farmers despite a huge increase in the input and transportation costs.
In the absence of adequate MSPs, the farmers were forced to sell their produce at throwaway prices to middlemen and touts, it said.
“Creation of the said forum would eliminate the middle men and benefit both the farmer, who would get adequate price and profit for his effort, and the end consumer, who would end up paying much less than he is paying today. Further the same would eliminate adulteration at the hands of middlemen,” the petition stated.
According to Mishra, the CACP has to comprise a chairman, a member secretary, two official members, and three non—official members who usually belong to the farming community.
But for the past several years, it was stated, there were no farmers on the commission as a result of which bureaucrats were fixing the MSP in an arbitrary manner.
Mishra submitted that an increase of just one rupee per litre in the price of diesel leads to a consequent increase of Rs 50 in the cost of production of food grain per quintal. The price of diesel was increased by about Rs 7 in the last one year leading to a consequent increase of cost of production of food grains by about Rs 350 per quintal.
“But the said increase in cost of production is not shown even in the minimum support price for the consequent period.
“The said MSP does not take into account the increase in cost of living i.e. inflation which presently is at about 17 per cent calculated on Wholesale Price Index which as it is a false indicator on inflation and does not take into account the consumer price index according to which inflation would be double the figure indicated by the Government,” the petition said.
The high court had earlier dismissed the petition on August 18, 2010.
