Agri ministry increases crop procurement limit to 25% to encourage MIS implementation

The agriculture ministry has revised guidelines for the Market Intervention Scheme (MIS), increasing the procurement limit of crops to 25% from 20%.

The guidelines have been revised to encourage states to implement the MIS.

According to an official statement on Monday, MIS is a component of the PM-AASHA scheme.

The MIS is implemented on the request of the state/UT government for procurement of various perishable agricultural/horticultural commodities such as tomato, onion, potato, etc, for which minimum support price (MSP) is not applicable and there is a reduction of at least 10% in market prices in states/UTs as compared to the rates of the previous normal season.

The scheme is to ensure farmers are not forced to sell their produce under distress.

To encourage more states to implement MIS, the government has revised the MIS guidelines.

In the revised norms, the government has made MIS a component of the integrated scheme of PM-AASHA.

"MIS will be implemented only when there is a minimum reduction of 10% in the prevailing market price as compared to the previous normal year," it added.

The procurement/coverage limit of production quantity of crops has been increased from the existing 20% to 25%, it added.

The state has also been given the option to pay the difference between the market intervention price (MIP) and the selling price directly into the bank account of the farmers in place of physical procurement.

Further, where there is a difference in the price of TOP crops (tomato, onion and potato) between the producing and consuming states, the operational cost incurred in storage and transportation of crops from the producing state to other consuming states will be reimbursed by Central Nodal Agencies (CNA) such as NAFED and NCCF, in the interest of farmers.

Approval has been given to NCCF for reimbursement of the cost of transportation of kharif tomatoes up to 1,000 tonnes from Madhya Pradesh to Delhi.

It is being proposed to include, apart from NAFED and NCCF, farmer producer organisations, farmer producer companies, state-nominated agencies and other central nodal agencies, to undertake procurement of TOP crops under MIS.