A day before the union budget, Congress has raised the demand to announce an increase in MSP of crops in the budget, in accordance with the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission along with legal guarantee of MSP to farmers. Along with this, the party has advocated for waiving the farmers' loans and said that if the bank loans of lakhs of crores of rupees of capitalists can be waived, then farmers cannot be deprived of its benefits.

Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Monday, that three major announcements need to be made by the Central Government in the budget coming on Tuesday. First, the MSP prices of 22 crops should be increased under the C2 50 percent formula in accordance with the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission. He said that the Central Government does not consider the purchase of crops necessary by giving legal status to MSP, but Congress clearly believes that a strong system of purchase of crops can be established by giving legal status to MSP.

Stressing on the third demand of farmer loan waiver, Jairam said that it is necessary to set up a permanent commission to assess it. Citing the recent example of Telangana, Jairam stated that according to the election promise, loans up to Rs 2 lakh of 40 lakh farmers in the state will be waived. When Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister, agricultural loans worth Rs 72,000 crore were waived in UPA-I.

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Jairam said that the Modi government has waived off bank loans of Rs 16 lakh crore of capitalists. On the other hand, the Reserve Bank has given a record dividend of Rs 2.11 lakh crore to the central government this year. Despite this, not even a single rupee of the farmers' loan has been waived off.

Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2023-2024 in the Lok Sabha earlier on Monday. The Economic Survey document, prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance and formulated under the supervision of the chief economic adviser, will give insights into the state of the economy and various indicators of 2023-24 (April-March) and some outlook for the current year.

Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju said that this session will mainly be devoted to the financial business relating to the Union Budget for 2024-25, which will be presented to Lok Sabha on July 23.

(With inputs from agency)