The Jai Kisan Andolan on Thursday launched an “MSP Loot Calculator”, which will calculate the losses incurred by farmers when forced to sell crops below the minimum support price.
According to Avik Saha, the national convenor of Jai Kisan Andolan — a nationwide movement dedicated to farmers’ rights, the calculator would be sharing new data every day showcasing the losses faced by farmers in different parts of the country in association with the sale of the variety of crops that they grow.
“Its purpose is to expose the false propaganda of the government that the farmer is getting the MSP announced by the government,” Mr. Saha said.
New findings by the loot calculator about different crops in different states and the losses incurred by farmers will now be shared daily on Jai Kisan Andolan’s social media pages, he added.
“From now on, every day the Jai Kisan movement will release the data of the plunder of the farmer in any state, any market or any crop,” Mr. Saha said.
He said the calculator would use data from the government website Agmark.net to deduce its findings.
Getting a written guarantee on the MSP has been one of the major demands being fielded by the farmers who have been protesting against the three farm laws at several Delhi borders for over 100 days now.
Jai Kisan Andolan founder Yogendra Yadav said while the government has been claiming that the “MSP was, is and will be there”, farmers have been forced to sell below the minimum support price and face huge losses for years.
According to the findings of the “MSP Loot calculator”, farmers have lost ₹140 crore by selling their crop below the minimum support price during the sale of chana (Bengal Gram) alone in the first 15 days of March, Mr. Yadav claimed.
“If the same trend of sale below MSP price continued and the government did not interfere, then in this year itself, farmers will be looted of ₹870 crore,” he alleged.
He, however, added that this “loot” was not new.
“Farmers were looted of ₹884 crore in the year 2020-21 for their gram crop as they got ₹800 less than the MSP. In the previous year of 2019-20, farmers were robbed of ₹957 crore. This trend continues every year as the government has not made any arrangement for the purchase of gram,” Mr. Yadav claimed.
