In an apparent effort to keep the beleaguered farmers in good humour in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led saffron alliance Government on Thursday announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 200 per quintal to all those onion growers who were forced to dispose of their produce in a distress sale during the last one and a half months.
At the weekly State Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the Maharashtra Government decided to make an ex gratia payment to onion who were forced their produce at “very low prices”, at the rate of Rs 200 per quintal with upper limit of 200 quintals per onion farmer for all the onion purchased by the State Agricultural Marketing Committee from November 1 2018 to December 15, 2018.
“At its Cabinet meeting held earlier in the day, the State Cabinet approved Rs 150 crore as a relief to the onion growers who were forced to sell their produce to the state and district Agriculture Marking Committees at very low prices. An ex gratia payment will be made to the beneficiary farmers will at the rate of Rs 200 per quintal with upper limit of 200 quintals per onion farmer for all the onion sold from November 1 2018 to December 15, 2018,” Maharashtra’s Principal Secretary (Agricultural Marketing) Anoop Kumar said.
Onion is a cash crop in Maharashtra, where crop is harvested during Kharif, late Kharif and Rabi seasons. Given the bountiful crop this year, there was a glut of stocks of onion at arriving at the various district and State agricultural marketing committee offices during the month of November. The stocks that arrived at the various marketing committees accounted for the 41.23 lakh quintals.
“The State Government will make an ex-gratia payment to 75 Lakh quintals (41.23 lakh quintals produced till November 18 and 33.73 Lakh quintals produced till December 15. The ex-gratia payments will be credited directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiary farmers,” Kumar said.