Karnataka: Agri price commission recommends millets for mid-day meals, decentralised MSP and procurement system

Read full article By Sandeep Moudgal @ Times of India Photo Credit: Indian Millets Magic

BENGALURU: The Karnataka agriculture price commission on Tuesday submitted a detailed report to the government for the purpose of increasing the income of farmers with more emphasis on millets sale.

Citing that as much as 61,000 hectares of land in Karnataka are producing 42,000 tonne of various types of millets, the price commission has asked the government to set a Rs 5,000 per quintal as minimum support price (MSP).

Further, it has asked the government to encourage the use of millets in the mid-day meals scheme and for pregnant and lactating mothers to increase the nutritional quotient in the scheme.

Meanwhile, the commission has also recommended that the fixing of MSP and that of procurement quantity must be done by the state government rather than going by the diktat of the centre.

The commission has justified this move by suggesting that Karnataka, on an average, procures 30 lakh tonne of food grains to be supplied under the public distribution system (PDS) but generally feels the pinch of the procurement with a fixed quantity MSP being recommended by the centre. The KPAC has effectively suggested a decentralised system of fixing MSP and procurement of foodgrains.

Karnataka, on a year-on-year basis, produces 50 lakh tonne of paddy, 3 lakh tonne of Ragi and 1 lakh tonne of Jowhar. In other recommendations, the KPAC has also recommended that the government set up one procurement centre every five kilometers in the state