After visiting regions affected by untimely rains in North India, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has written to Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, seeking easier wheat procurement norms to help affected farmers.

“I have witnessed first-hand the acute distress that our farmers are facing. Some of them have been pushed to poverty overnight and are staring at bankruptcy,” she said in a letter dated April 6. She further urged him to ensure that Food Corporation of India (FCI) does not reject wheat with high moisture content due to unseasonal rains and hailstorm in several States.

The Congress president’s letter follows media reports of FCI refusing to buy rain-damaged wheat at minimum support price (MSP) in some areas of Rajasthan on quality grounds.

Under the rules, FCI does not buy wheat with moisture content of more than 14 per cent and farmers get a lower price if the moisture content is between 12 and 14 per cent.

“In normal circumstances, such specifications may hold,” Sonia said, adding that given this “unprecedented crisis”, very little wheat will qualify for procurement under the existing norms.

Difficult days

“These are difficult days for farmers and not being able to sell their produce defeats the very purpose of guaranteeing a minimum support price,” she said, calling for “suspension of regulations enforceable in ordinary conditions” and providing “this small but significant relief to farmers.”

Sonia reminded the Centre of “precedents in the past where the government has relaxed quality specifications for procurement in times of crises.”

“The UPA government continued that precedent and ensured exemptions for farmers during such grave occasions,” she said, adding that she hoped the Food Ministry would do the same now.