The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to hike the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy by Rs60 and pulses by Rs425 per quintal. The meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also cleared proposal to set up India Post payments bank with a corpus of Rs800 crore.
“We have increased the MSP of all kharif crops for 2016-17. Over and above the MSP, we have also decided to give a bonus of Rs425 per quintal for pulses and Rs100-200 per quintal for oilseeds,” Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told reporters after the CCEA meeting. The Government hiked the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy by Rs60 to Rs1,470 per quintal for the 2016-17 kharif season.
The Government has increased paddy MSP marginally as the country has sufficient stocks and the price increase covers the cost of production. Barring pulses and oilseeds, the CCEA has approved the MSP of other crops as per the recommendation of Government’s advisory body on farm pricing CACP.
In case of pulses, the sources said the Government has hiked MSP substantially for 2016-17 kharif season to boost domestic production and reduce the country’s dependence on imports. “This (increase in pulses and oilseeds MSP) is expected to give a strong price signal to farmers to bring more acreage under pulses and oilseed crops,” Singh said.
The Government cleared proposal to set up India Post payments bank with a corpus of Rs800 crore and has plans to have 650 branches operational by September 2017, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
“The Cabinet has cleared proposal of postal payments bank. We have 1.54 lakh post offices of which 1.39 lakh are rural post offices. 650 branches of postal payments bank will be established in the country which will be linked to rural post offices,” Prasad said.
The Minister said the payments bank, which will be run by Chief Executive Officer, will be professionally managed and there will be a representation from various other Government departments, including the Department of Posts, Department of Expenditure, Department of Economic Services, etc.
“Total architecture of postal payments bank is of Rs800 crore which will have Rs400 crore equity and Rs400 crore grant. By September 2017, all 650 branches of postal payments bank will become operational.
This we had planned for three years but now we will be doing it in a year,” Prasad said. He said that all ‘grameen dak sevaks’ in rural post offices will be given handheld devices by March 2017.
“We are reinforcing it further. I have had discussion with my officers to give iPad and smartphones to postmen in urban post offices,” Ravi Shankar Prasad said. At present, core banking network of post offices is more than that of State Bank of India. SBI has 1,666 core banking branches while 22,137 post offices now have core banking facility.