Raj house unanimous on hiking support price of mustard

Jaipur, Oct 5 (UNI) Rajasthan Assembly today passed a unanimous resolution demanding the hiking of the minimum support price of mustard to Rs 1800 per quintal.

The resolution followed an adjournment motion moved by Congres MLA Bharat Singh during Zero Hour, expressing concern over the proposal of the Central Agriculture Commission for Prices (CACP) to redcue the support price of mustard from Rs 1715 to 1600.

The ruling BJP members seized the matter to embarass the Congress and the congress-led UPA government at the Centre by asking the oppostion Party to support a unanimous resolution on the issue to protect the interest of the farmers in the state.

Parlimentary Affairs minister Rajendra Singh Rahtore sought to put the ball in the Congress court by asking if it was genuinely concerned with the interest of the farmers, they must support the resolution. This was followed by procedural wranglings and the house was adjoured thrice to evolve a consensus over the issue.

When the house meet in the afternoon the ruling party and the opposition agreed on the resolution. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, moving the resolution, said Rajasthan account for about 45 percent of the total mustard cultivation in the country with about 27-30 lakh hectares of land under mustard cultivation. Last year, the Central government has announced a minium support price of Rs.1715 per quintal but the CACP has proposed to reduce the support price of mustard to Rs 1600 for the year 2007, which was not in the interest of the farmers in the light of the fact that the input cost of the farmers including seeds and fertiliser have been on the rise. The resolution demanded that instead of reducing the support price, it should be hiked to Rs.1800 for the year 2007.

The Chief Minister also said due to shortage of railway rakes, the demand of the farmers for for urea and DAP could not be fully met.

Noting that this year the demand was estimated to be to the tune of 3.5 lakh, she demanded the central government to made avialble enough rakes for the transportation of the fertilisers.

The resolution was unanimously passed by the house.

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