The recent announcement of minimum support prices (MSP) for various Kharif crops has once again called into question certain aspects of the official policy towards agricultural pricing. True to pattern, it has come in late. The monsoon arrived at least a week before, and many farmers might have already chosen the crops to sow. The world over governments through their price support programmes, consisting of assured minimum prices and subsidies,...

The Centre's decision to raise the minimum support price (MSP) sharply for pulses, moderately for coarse cereals and oil seeds, and not at all for rice and cotton (the nominal hike for rice merely rolls in the bonus offered last year) is right, in the conventional sense. The signal against increasing acreage for rice this kharif is sound, given the huge stocks with the government. The signalling is right, too,...

Never mind the Kirit Parikh committee's proposal for a 20% reduction in pan-India allocation of subsidised kerosene to stem oil companies' under-recoveries, the UPA government might do just the opposite. It is mulling not only the retention of the commodity—used by a vast segment of rural India for lighting—in the targeted public distribution system (TPDS) but also introduction of another item: edible oil. Even as she is about to take over...

A new draft of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) suggests offering cash compensation to poor people who are unable to receive their quota of subsidized foodgrains. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government will discuss the draft with state food secretaries in a meeting on 14-15 June. “The Central government shall set up, by notification, a central food security fund for payment of compensation to state governments in the event...

THE NATIONAL Advisory Council ( NAC) headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has scored its first victory — a change in the proposed Food Security Bill that raises the monthly allocation of foodgrains to the poor from 25 kg to 35 kg at Rs 3 a kilo. The draft Bill, approved by the empowered group of ministers ( EGoM) recently, had offered 25 kg of foodgrains to those below the poverty...