NEW DELHI: A proposal to implement the recommendations by the M S Swaminathan Committee report on farmers will soon be placed before the Delhi cabinet, Delhi Development Minister Gopal Rai said. Rai said that the proposal note was ready and would be presented by mid-September. The recommendations would be launched under the "Mukhya Mantri Kisan Mitra Yojna". Under the proposed scheme, the Minimum Support Price (MSP) with 50 per cent margin at the cost of production is likely to be Rs 2,616 per quintal for wheat and Rs 2,667 quintal for paddy in the national capital, an official said. "The proposed MSP structure is higher than the MSP provided by the Central government by Rs 776 per quintal for wheat and Rs 897 per quintal for paddy," the official said. The Delhi government has calculated that the government will have to incur an additional liability of Rs 96.38 crore at this MSP. To implement the recommendations, Rs 100 crore was kept aside in the 2019-20 Budget. Speaking about the plight of farmers, Finance Minister Manish Sisodia said in his Budget speech: "When the country was ruled by the British, the farmers did not commit suicides. But when the county is heading towards development, they are committing suicide in the 21st century." Despite being presented in 2006, no government in the county had implemented the Swaminathan report, Rai pointed out. Around 20,000 families of farmers in Delhi will benefit from this scheme. In February, Rai had organised an Agriculture Conference to discuss the implementation of the recommendations. He had also sought suggestions from farmers and general public on the same. In 2006 report, the National Commission on farmers chairman M S Swaminathan suggested the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to fix MSP at least 50% more than the weighted average cost of production. This recommendation was not incorporated in the National policy for farmers 2007. However, recently the government increased the MSP for all Kharif and Rabi crops and other commercial crops for the season 2018-19 with a return of at least 50 per cent over cost of production, the Union agriculture ministry had said in a statement in December last year.

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