A View from Outside

I was reading a book of all editorial compilation of our former finance minister Mr. P Chidambaram, “A View form Outside”
Very argumentative (this man not forgotten his old profession) views, On our consumer behavior towards our farm produces, I was impressed and 100% agrees with his argument that we are not ready to pay right price to our farm produce. He puts very interesting analysis on our willingness to pay for a Kg of rice or Sugar and minimum support price of paddy and its conversion cost
The minimum support price for 100 Kg of Paddy is Rs. 500, conversion from paddy to rice is about 45%. Adding all manufacturing activities like Procurement, power and supply chain cost the minimum price consumer should pay so that whole supply chain survives is Rs. 20 a Kg.( We had votted a party to power which promissed Rice for Rs. 2/- a Kg )
Similarly if I extend this to sugar MSP for 1000 Kg of Sugar cane is Rs. 1000, conversion from Sugarcane to Sugar is about 9%. Adding all manufacturing activities like Procurement, power and supply chain cost the minimum price consumer should pay so that whole supply chain survives is Rs. 21 a Kg.( We cried to sky when per Kg price of sugar rose to Rs. 19 /- )
We are getting into a negotiation on hearing price for any farm produce but pay and paying without even seeing MRP when we buy a bottle of mineral water.
Hope we change our behavior while buying farm produce, Incidentally we had P Chidambaram become finance minister after writing this book, He could have done something for farmers after observing this imbalance.
Now I don’t see any differences between a cricket commentator who make comments like “Oh! Sachin could have played onside than trying to flick offside to a slip fielder”.
Mr P Chidambaram, are you listening!!!