CPI-M demands law giving right to farmers to sell at MSP

New Delhi, June 15 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has demanded a law giving farmers right to sell their produce at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and guaranteeing an automatic annual review of the MSP.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said that with the Food Corp of India (FCI) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) not buying all the produce at MSP, the farmers were being forced to sell their produce at a loss.

"I am writing this letter to draw your attention to the plight of farmers across India which has resulted in a high level of rural distress, including thousands of suicides by farmers in the past three years.

"There have been increasing protests by farmers in one state after another, which have been met by your silence and apathy while the state governments of your party have let the police loose on the poor farmers," Yechury wrote in the letter.

He also mentioned the farmers' death in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and the "distress suicides" committed by farmers across the country.

"Under these circumstances, I am writing to you to demand that your government introduce and pass a legislation in the forthcoming monsoon session of Parliament which not only confers on farmers the right to sell at MSP but also guarantees an automatic annual review of the MSP which will be, at least, 50 per cent more than the comprehensive production costs as established by the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) for that year," Yechury said.