Evaluation of price support and market intervention scheme in Rajasthan

Agricultural Price Policy is one of the instruments that has helped farmers and brought about a noticeable change in the production and productivity of the agriculture sector. In view of the distorted and unregulated market conditions prevailing for agricultural produces in India, support prices are very imperative for farmers to get assured income from their crop cultivation. Although price support policy linked to procurement has served the country well in the past three decades, it has come under severe scrutiny and attack for various reasons in the recent years. The present study attempted to evaluate the PSS (MSP) and MIS in Rajasthan state by using data collected from 120 farmers from two selected districts on two crops, gram (MSP) and garlic (MIS). It is observed that there were bottlenecks in the operations of PSS and MIS in the state. The major problems perceived by farmers in marketing of selected crops were delay in payments, lack of processing units, non-availability of cold storage/warehousing facility and low market price. Thus, in order to give remunerative prices to the farmers and to prevent them from distress sale, these bottlenecks need to be removed. Also the storage and processing facilities need to be created on priority basis.