Gujarat govt likely to announce relief package for cotton farmers today

Gujarat Government is likely to declare its decision to provide financial package to cotton farmers of the state on Wednesday. A senior minister in the Cabinet said that the issue was discussed in the meeting of the State Cabinet on Tuesday and a decision in that regard would be announced on Wednesday.

Around a month back, the Central Government had announced the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for cotton crop at Rs 810 per 20 kg.
Following the announcement, the market price for cotton, which hovered around Rs 900 per 20 kg, had fallen significantly. This led to a lot of unrest among farmers, who started demanding a financial package for themselves.

The Indian Express has reported that the state government is likely to announce bonus for cotton farmers of the state in addition to the MSP.

Following the local body elections results recently, the state government had held a number of meetings with farmer leaders and agriculture produce market committees (APMCs) to discuss the issue.

The exercise is being seen as an attempt of the ruling BJP to win back rural voters as it lost badly to Congress in the rural areas in the recently concluded elections of local bodies.

Meanwhile, the Gujarat BJP Tuesday made a representation before Chief Minister Anandiben Patel to provide relief to cotton farmers of the state in one or the other way since they were not getting remunerative price for their crop, said an official release from the state BJP president R C Faldu on Tuesday.

Faldu said, “For some time, the rates of cotton crop have been falling and farmers are not getting remunerative prices and the Gujarat BJP is worried about the same.”

Faldu further added that in their representation before the CM, they said that due to elections, the state government could not announce anything, but now when elections were over, the cotton farmers should be given some relief.

Source : Indian Express