Date:01/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/01/stories/2008070158730300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

CACP only an advisory body, says Mahendra Dev

Staff Reporter

“It’s for the Centre to take a final decision on MSP”

VUYYURU (Krishna district): S. Mahendra Dev, Chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), on Monday said it was for the Centre to take a final decision on the commission’s recommendation for payment of a minimum support price of Rs. 1,000 a quintal for paddy and a good price for sugarcane too.

“The commission’s role ends there, and it is for the Government to consider the demand-supply position, inflation and other such factors before finalising the prices,” he said.

He was addressing a ‘Rythu Sadassu’ (farmers’ conference) organised by the KCP Sugar and Industries Corporation Limited and KCP Sugarcane Growers’ Association here on Monday.

Good prices

Mr. Mahendra Dev sought to dispel the notion that the CACP was not recommending remunerative prices for farmers. He pointed out that it was only a recommendatory or advisory body and not a statutory one vested with final powers.

Assuring the farmers that the Commission would look into their problems sympathetically and continue to suggest good prices for various crops across the country, he said for the first time since its inception, the commission had recommended significant hikes in the MSPs of various crops in the range of 30 per cent to 90 per cent in the last two years.

K. Laxminarayana, Commissioner for Sugar and Cane, said the farmers and the industry should come out with novel ideas and do things differently so as to make cultivation remunerative.

KCP Managing Director Irmgard Velagapudi M. Rao said their industry was taking care of farmers’ needs from time to time and several crores of rupees were spent in times of adversity to provide help to farmers.

Former agriculture minister Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao, local MLA K. Parthasarathi, KCP General Manager G. Venkateswara Rao, KCP Sugarcane Growers’ Association President Mulpuri Venkateswara

Felicitated

Rao and others spoke. Several cane growers were felicitated on the occasion for their achievement in getting highest per cane yield during 2006-’07 season.