Mumbai : The Union government is working on a new legislation to nab middlemen who are responsible price rise, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Eknath Khadse said here on Tuesday.
Khadse was replying to questions from journalists at a press conference in the state party headquarters. When asked about the agitation started by one of the ‘Mahayuti’ allies, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS), seeking Minimum Support Price (MSP) for onion, Khadse said, “The problem is due to middlemen and not due to the government policies. I met the Union Agriculture Minister recently. He told me that the current legislative framework is inadequate to tackle the problem of middlemen. So, the government is working on a new legislation, which is expected to come in the next parliamentary session.”
“We are here to look after welfare of all sections of the society. We want to assure farmers of the good price to their goods at the same time we want to take care of the common consumers also,” Khadse added.
Meanwhile, SSS, led by its MP Raju Shetty and Sadabhau Khot, staged a protest in Nashik to demand support prices for onions and lifting of the total ban on onion export.
The organisation burnt an effigy of the Union government and warned that if Centre does not declare support price for onions, Union ministers would not be allowed to enter Nashik district.
Raju Shetty is an MP from Kolhapur district in Western Maharashtra whose SSS is a partner of the Shiv Sena-BJP-RPI alliance.
Addressing activists, he said that prices of onions and pomegranates dropped after the Union government began purchasing onions from Egypt, which are being sold in Nashik at Rs 500 per quintal, while pomegranates are being sold at Rs 20 per kilogram.
Khot said that the centre has included onions in the list of essential commodities and demanded special packages for onions and pomegranates.
If the government failed to do this, ministers would be pelted with onions and pomegranates, he said.
