Mumbai: The controversy over tur dal procurement in Maharashtra continues to escalate. Farmers from the state especially from Vidarbha, Marathwada and northern part of Maharashtra are facing a crisis as they are unable to sell their produce. In a bid to find a solution, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis met union food minister Ramvilas Paswan on Monday morning in Delhi.
After the meeting, Mr Paswan said his ministry is in favour of increasing the import duty on tur by 25 per cent.
However, the state government has indicated that it will come up with a special scheme for tur-cultivating farmers in the cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Maharashtra is one of the major tur-producing states in the country and had a bumper crop this year.
As per the state government’s data, a record 36 lakh quintal tur has been procured through 316 different centres.
But as per estimates of the state and central government, almost 8 to 9 lakh quintal tur is yet to be procured.
The state government’s marketing federations are facing severe crisis due to lack of godowns and bags to store the tur dal.
The farmers in the state have also been unable to sell their produce. The state government has announced Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 5050 per quintal this year for the tur dal.
But as the state government’s marketing federations are unable to procure tur dal, farmers have to sell it in private market for Rs 4000 to Rs 4300. Due to fall in prices of tur dal, the farmers are not able to even recover the input cost.
CM Fadnavis met Mr Paswan in Delhi on Monday, asking him to increase duty on tur by 10 per cent to 20 per cent so that domestic prices would not fall.
He also requested the central government to increase the deadline of tur procurement from NAFED by one week.
The Asian Age has learnt from sources that, the state government is likely to come up with a financial proposal for procuring all tur from farmers in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Also, government may give direct financial relief to the tur-cultivating farmers.
