MSP is minimum and no support.

"Finance minister Arun Jaitley's grand budget announcement of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) providing assured 50% returns to farmers may not actually mean a 50% return," wrote R Kishore. Why not? Because, "Less than one-fourth of India's total cereal production is procured at MSP." "Of late horticultural production has surpassed food grain production in India. There is no MSP coverage for fruits and vegetables." "More than half of total rice and wheat procurement is done from the traditional green revolution states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh." So it is grossly unfair to the other states. And even in these states "less than half of all farmers were even aware of MSPs". So, it is basically useless. Even worse vast amounts of grains procured by MSP are wasted because of lack of storage space. The cost of wastage is over Rs 440 billion every year. To be fair to the government buffer stocks of food grains were introduced in 1969 to prevent against famine. This was in response to the humiliation of begging the US for help through its PL480 program when faced with famine in the sixties. However, today this is seen as providing a massive subsidy to farmers under WTO rules, especially as India exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural commodities. Providing MSPs distorts agricultural production as farmers produce only those crops on which they get guaranteed returns while neglecting more valuable crops, wrote SA Aiyar. The Public Distribution System, through which the government provides cheap food grains to the poor from a chain of 478,000 'ration shops' across India, is seen as essential to fight malnutrition which affects 38% of children under five. Five million workers move out of agriculture every year, wrote Prof Himanshu, and there are no good jobs for them in the formal sector. The Economic Survey 2017, by the Chief Economic Adviser, suggested a Universal Basic Income, or UBI, instead of various subsidies, which would eliminate waste and provide help to every needy person, so that no one misses out. Trouble is that once a social scheme is started it is impossible to stop. G Sampath saw UBI as a conspiracy to deprive the poor of existing subsidies. He insists that "it must be funded by taxing the wealthy; and the existing entitlements to the poor must not be taken away". UD Choubey recommends government control of capital, which is Marxism by another name. The slowdown in the economy last year was because of a collapse in demand in the rural sector, wrote Prof Himanshu. Farmers are becoming tech savvy and are demanding better opportunities, and not just handouts, wrote S Bera. Opportunities will not win next year's election, handouts will. Taxpayer will pay.