From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Aug 12: Congress MPs from the State staged a protest in the parliament premises in Delhi on Friday seeking fixation of higher Minimum Support Price (MSP) by the Centre for copra, coconut and arecanut.
MPs Rehman Khan, B.N. Chandrappa, B K Hariprasad, S P Muddehanume Gowda, Dhru Narayana, D K Suresh, Prakash Hukkeri, and M Veerappa Moily staged the protest in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue in the parliament.
As the growers of Karnataka are in deep financial crisis owing to crash in prices of commodities, MPs demanded ban on import of arecanut and coconut.
The Congress MPs demanded MSP of Rs 20,000 and Rs 3,000 per quintal of copra and coconut, respectively.
They also urged the Narendra Modi Government to fix the MSP for arecanut at Rs. 40,000 per quintal.
The price of each coconut that until recently cost anywhere between Rs. 20 and Rs. 30 in the wholesale markets has crashed to below Rs. 10 this season. It was in 2006, that coconut prices had fallen below Rs 10.
Yeddyurappa claims Centre has conceded demand
Meanwhile, State BJP President and Shimoga MP B S Yeddyurapa has in a press statement released in Bengaluru, claimed that the Centre has agreed to fix Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 40,000 for Red Arecanut and Rs 30,000 for White Arecanut per quintal.
“This assurance was given by Smt NirmalaSeetharaman, Union Minister of State for Commerce to a BJP delegation during the parliament session,” B.S. Yeddyurappa has said in a statement issued here on Friday.
Yeddyurappa said he had led a delegation of BJP MPs to the Union Commerce Minister and requested for immediate intervention of the Union Commerce Ministry following steep fall in the prices of Arecanut that had caused untold distress to the farmers.
“We had also highlighted the import of sub-standard quality of Arecanut from other countries that needed to be checked. The Union Minister for Commerce had assured of taking appropriate action. Now, she has assured us that the MSP would be announced very shortly,” Yeddyrappa stated.
According to the BJP President, an official communication to that effect is likely to be issued by the Union Ministry of Commerce very shortly.