‘Lack of funds’ shuts MS Swaminathan Research Foundation in Maharashtra’s Wardha | Nagpur News

In every forum that discusses the region’s agrarian crisis, the Swaminathan Formula of fixing the MSP at C2 plus 50% is mentioned.
In 2004, he headed the farmers’ commission which recommended that the cost of cultivation taken into account to fix MSP should also include interest and capital outgo.
“At present the basic value of physical inputs like seeds, fertilizer, wages and notional value of family labour only are considered,” says Vijay Jawandhia, a veteran farm activist from Wardha and former Shetkari Sangathana leader.
Jawandhia has also worked with Swaminathan on the MSP front.

Swaminathan had visited Wardha in 2005 during the farmers commission’s tour.
“He came to my village Waifad and had started a centre for MS Swaminathan Research Foundation along with a soil testing lab there. The centre shut down in 2015 when the new government stopped grants to it,” says Jawandhia.
“I had accompanied him during the Wardha tour and had offered my house at Waifad village for starting the centre. Those days there was not much internet access, so a satellite dish of ISRO was fixed and the centre was inaugurated with an online address by the then President APJ Abul Kalam,” says Jawandhia.

It ran well for 10 years and an extension centre was opened at Wardha town too.
The foundation ran an mobile eye clinic which toured the rural areas.
Things came to a standstill after the government changed and grants were stopped, he says.
Kishore Tiwari, an activist from Yavatmal, also remembers that the centre closed for lack of fund after the grants were stopped.
“Swaminathan accepted that the attempts to increase productivity through the Green Revolution have created newer problems due to spiraling input costs. He laid much focus on Vidarbha region post 2000 and most of the recommendations of the farmers’ commission were based on the observations here,” said Tiwari.

Jawandhia says, “Once Swaminathan told me that during the Green Revolution, situation in the country was in his mind. Those days the country was in a hand-to-mouth situation and the output needed to be increased. Today, I have to think of the farmers’ benefit.”
Anil Ghanwat, the president of Shetkari Sangathana, the outfit which backed the three farm laws, also appreciated Swamithanan’s work as a scientist.
However, the MSP formula he suggested lacked economic understanding, may be because of his lack of understanding of the subject, Ghanwat said.